State Asylum for the Deaf,Dumb and Blind

The California Schools for the Deaf and the Blind occupy a 50-acre campus at the foot of the Berkeley hills, where the institution has operated since 1867. The site holds classrooms, dormitories, auditoria, dining halls and gymnasia, mostly built between 1914 and the 1950s from reinforced concrete. Buildings share red tile roofs, light walls and Hispanic details such as arches, miradors, quatrefoil windows, balconies and loggias. Most were designed by the Office of the State Architect, with Alfred Eichler, R.D. Murray and Charles F.B. Roeth among the named designers. Buildings of the Deaf school are arranged around courtyards linked by arcades, while the Blind school sits along Derby Street. Interior features include relief panels by sculptor Sargent Claude Johnson, commissioned by the Federal Arts Project in 1937. The campus was listed because its consistent design vocabulary and landscape planning unite buildings from several eras, and because it illustrates the state's long-running public school for deaf and blind students, founded in San Francisco in 1860.