Ghaleb Zawde

LA 319 OL1: History of Architecture: Modernity

Laura Brugger

8.1 – Project Part 4 – Analysis of a Detail

November 1, 2020

The Ramps of the Berkeley Art Museum

The whole experience of the Berkeley Art Museum is done through a series of ramps that begin at the
entrance and take the visitors through the lobby space and around the galleries’ cantilevered balconies.
The ramps wrap around the central void, and as they take the visitor from one gallery to the other, they
heighten the experience of the adjacent massive void and act as a connection between the comparatively
small and sequenced spaces of the galleries, and the rooted massive void of the lobby space. The ramps
are a small feature in the museum, but they represent the essence and concept of the whole experience in
the museum. The ramps have four elements in their form and experiential qualities that make them act as
a representation of the bigger concept of the museum; they represent four features that are expressed
much more explicitly and strongly in the rest of the design.

The first quality of the ramp that is expressed in the logic of the whole design is its continuity and un-
branching nature, the idea of a single ramp that guides the visitors in a predetermined sequence of spaces
and line of circulation expresses the linear nature of the museum’s approach to art viewing and
appreciation. All the gallery spaces of the museum are placed in sequential order, and the visitors are led
by the ramps to experience all the galleries in a straight and linear motion. Another feature of the ramp
that is manifested in a larger form in the design of the museum is its motion to wrap arounds itself and
the central void. This motion of wrapping and its oscillation between slope and plane is illustrative of the
larger oscillation of its exterior form. The exterior form wraps around its central node, just like how the
ramps are made to wrap around a central void, and their change in height is reflected in the changes in
the building’s roofline. This leads to the third aspect of the ramp’s detail that is reflected in the overall
design of the museum, the hierarchy and emphasis it radiates towards the central lobby void. The view
experienced from the ramp and the juxtaposition that it manifests between the small galleries and the
expansive central void directs all the attention of the visitors back to the immensity of the buildings and
its lobby space as well as the interconnectedness between the different platforms and ramps through the
void. This emphasis is an important part of the museum’s design, the lobby acts as the pivot point of the
rotation of its exterior massing, the skylights heighten the importance of the lobby, and experientially, the
lobby void can be considered the most important space in the whole building. The attention that the ramps
direct towards the lobby’s void coincides with the way all the other aspects of the bigger design also direct
attention towards this central space. Finally, looking at the ramp individually one would see that it is plain
and lacks any detail and ornamentation, it is merely a sloped slab of flat concrete, this aesthetic and lack
of ornament is a major part of the building’s brutalist design concept.

In conclusion, the ramp, as minor of a detail as it might seem, embodies all the major elements of the
building’s concept and design.