Sather Tower

Description

Sather Tower is a campanile (clock tower), with clocks on its four faces, on the University of California, Berkeley campus, more commonly known as The Campanile for its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice. It is the university's most recognizable symbol. Given by Jane K. Sather in memory of her husband, banker Peder Sather, it is the third-tallest bell-and-clock-tower in the world. Its current 61-bell carillon, built around a nucleus of 12 bells also given by Jane Sather, can be heard for many miles and supports an extensive program of education in campanology.Sather Tower also houses many of the Department of Integrative Biology's fossils (mainly from the La Brea Tar Pits) because its cool, dry interior is suited for their preservation.OverviewDesigned by John Galen Howard, founder of the Department of Architecture at the University, Sather Tower was completed in 1914 and opened to the public in 1917. With seven principal floors and an eighth-floor observation deck, at 307ft it is the third-tallest bell-and-clock-tower in the world. It marked a secondary axis in Howard's original Beaux-Arts campus plan and has been a major point of orientation in almost every campus master plan since.