Berkeley City Club

The Berkeley Women's City Club raised the money for its own building by subscription among its members and gave the commission to Julia Morgan, then in her late fifties and deep into the campaign at San Simeon. Ground was broken in 1929 and the club opened eleven months later. Morgan built it in reinforced concrete throughout, the material her engineering degree had taught her to trust, and then made the decoration out of the same concrete, casting quatrefoils, cusped arcades and corbelled cornices into the structure instead of hanging them on it. The plan is organised around two open courtyards so that inner rooms take daylight from both sides, and the set piece is a double-height indoor pool running under a row of concrete arches. Berkeley calls it the Little Castle. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and is California Historical Landmark 908.