{"id":228581,"date":"2026-03-20T14:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228581\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:03:15","slug":"berkeley-church-is-a-brutalist-showcase-it-needs-repairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/228581\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley church is a brutalist showcase. It needs repairs."},"content":{"rendered":"

Before he came to Newman Hall Holy Spirit Parish<\/a> near UC Berkeley last year, Friar Xavier Lavagetto oversaw the Catholic campus ministry at Stanford University, and led mass in its famed Memorial Church. Built at the turn of the 20th century, the building harkens back far earlier<\/a> with its Romanesque architecture, shimmering mosaics and intricate stained-glass windows that make it a centerpiece of the campus.<\/p>\n

Lavagetto\u2019s new home could hardly be more different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newman Hall has hulked at the corner of Dwight Way and College Avenue since 1967, defined by a shell of colossal concrete panels, which also form the walls of its sanctuary and much of the rest of the interior. It\u2019s a showcase for brutalism<\/a>, and like other examples of that often-maligned architectural movement, Newman Hall starkly divides opinion.<\/p>\n

\"ALavagetto keeps a trash can in his office to catch water that drips from the ceiling. His office is directly below a leaky second-floor patio that the parish plans to redesign. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

But as the parish looks to raise $600,000 for repairs to its nearly 60-year-old home, a recent tour showed why those with a fondness for brutalism \u2014 or anyone who can appreciate creative design \u2014 will delight in exploring the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really massive, but there\u2019s such a thoughtfulness to it,\u201d said John King, the former urban design critic at the San Francisco Chronicle who retired in 2024. \u201cIt embodies all the good things [from] that kind of heroic, rugged era of architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Lavagetto has gotten used to his new home, he has found details to appreciate \u2014 like how the sanctuary arrays its pews nearly 180 degrees around the pulpit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an excellent preaching space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ANewman Hall has stood at the corner of Dwight Way and College Avenue since 1967. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Still, the building is showing its age. A leaky second-story patio above Lavagetto\u2019s office lets in rain, forcing the parish to spend $13,000 recently to remediate black mold, which is expected to return. The original single-pane windows that flood the concrete spaces with natural light are poorly insulated. And the building is still heated by its original boiler, said longtime parishioner Rob Hopcke \u2014 a system so outdated that many of the repair technicians who know how to service it are aging out of the field.<\/p>\n

An exaltation of concrete that doesn\u2019t feel like a bunker<\/p>\n

Designed by the architect Mario Ciampi<\/a>, Newman Hall opened a few years before his masterpiece a few blocks north: the original Berkeley Art Museum building<\/a>, which wowed visitors with soaring concrete galleries that flaunted gravity and, it turned out, seismic safety. Ciampi also designed celebrated school buildings<\/a> in the suburbs of San Mateo County, as well as several less-beloved public plazas<\/a> along San Francisco\u2019s Market Street.<\/p>\n

The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive left Ciampi\u2019s building in 2014<\/a> for their current home downtown because of earthquake safety concerns. After major renovations<\/a>, the building between Durant Avenue and Bancroft Way reopened in 2021 as Woo Hon Fai Hall<\/a>, the home of a biotech business incubator known as the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub.<\/p>\n

\"\"A few blocks north of Newman Hall is architect Mario Ciampi\u2019s most famous building: the former Berkeley Art Museum, home since a seismic renovation to the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub. Credit: Brittany Hosea-Small<\/p>\n

That remains the \u201cmore adventurous, swaggering, cool\u201d Ciampi building, King said. But its lower-profile sibling, Newman Hall, deserves recognition as the better \u201cexample of what brutalism set out to do\u201d by being in touch with the needs of its users, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about concrete \u2014 it\u2019s all about heft and form and depth,\u201d he said, \u201cbut there are so many smart moves around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concrete walls, for example, are made up of alternating panels set off by a half-inch or so that create the building\u2019s distinct vertical lines and give the material a sense of depth that is reminiscent of stone or brick, King said. While Newman Hall is an imposing presence along College Avenue, he said, it makes a \u201cperson-scaled shift\u201d near the corner with Dwight Way, pulling back from the sidewalk to form an entry courtyard that welcomes visitors with a grove of a dozen redwood trees.<\/p>\n

\"ANewman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish\u2019s walls, inside and out, are made of board-formed concrete. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

It all comes together in the church\u2019s sanctuary, where the concrete walls soar up to the ceiling but never touch it. The top of the space is instead ringed with glass, the roof supported by thinner pieces of steel, letting in a halo of sunlight that moves with the hours and seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The focal point of the space is a pulpit that swells like a mound of earth out of the polished concrete floor. Its altar and other fixtures were created by the sculptor Stephen De Staebler<\/a>, made from clay he dug out of the East Bay Hills. There is no grand stained glass window, and few bold colors at all \u2014 instead, the palate is a naturalistic gray and earthen brown.<\/p>\n

\"AFormer urban design critic John King praised the \u201cperson-scaled shift\u201d of the entryway, where the concrete building draws back from its hulking exterior to a welcoming green space. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

\"AA view of the College Avenue side of the church. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Hopcke noted Ciampi\u2019s use of board-formed concrete, which takes on the grain pattern and notches of the wooden casts it\u2019s poured into, gives the walls more warmth than people would normally associate with the material. That effect ratchets up during a candlelight mass.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re worshiping in the catacombs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ALongtime parishioner Rob Hopcke speaks about the church inside Lavagetto\u2019s office. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Hopcke hears from plenty of UC Berkeley students who grew up going to more traditional churches and find Newman Hall\u2019s architecture austere and difficult to love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he sees the building as an embodiment of the pivotal era in which it was built. Along with the other upheaval of the 1960s, Newman Hall opened a couple of years after the Second Vatican Council<\/a> ushered in a wave of changes that extended to the architecture of Catholic churches, which were redesigned in an effort to make the experience of mass more communal and the church itself less hierarchical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just aesthetically\u201d interesting, Hopcke said, \u201cbut historically significant too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ALavagetto at the church\u2019s altar. Sculptor Stephen De Staebler created the altar\u2019s fixtures using clay he dug out of the East Bay Hills. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside
\nCampaign seeks to make repairs, but not change architecture<\/p>\n

Newman Hall serves as the home base for Catholics at Cal \u2014 of the several dozen people in the pews for a mid-day mass last week, many were toting backpacks and seemed to have stopped by between classes \u2014 as well as Catholics who live permanently in the East Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Holy Spirit Parish has long been known as a church that embodied the progressive streak of the city and university. But in 2014, the church was rocked when Bishop Michael Barber, appointed the year before to lead the Oakland Diocese, dismissed two Newman Hall priests and called for a \u201cmajor redirection of ministry\u201d there, according to the East Bay Express<\/a>. Parishioners feared the move was Barber\u2019s attempt to steer the church in a more conservative direction.<\/p>\n

\"PeopleThe walls of the sanctuary, seen here during a midday mass, reach to the ceiling but don\u2019t touch it \u2014 instead, they let in a halo of natural light that shifts with the seasons. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Hopcke said he disagreed with Barber\u2019s decision, which he regards as a \u201cmisstep\u201d by a bishop who didn\u2019t know the parish well at the time. Hopcke contends Newman Hall\u2019s politics haven\u2019t lurched to the right in the years since \u2014 the church still has its mix of \u201cBerkeley social justice Catholics\u201d and those with more traditional and conservative views.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real breadth of belief here, and there is a sort of easy coexistence between those,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Lavagetto added, \u201cthere\u2019s no antagonism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AThe second-story patio is a popular gathering space, but its baptismal pool has been empty and cordoned off for years. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n

Hopcke is now helping lead the fundraising campaign to replace Newman Hall\u2019s boiler and windows, and address the mold problems by redesigning its rooftop patio space to eliminate leaks.<\/p>\n

That aspect of the project will be the most significant change most people will see; there aren\u2019t plans to redesign the building or change its distinctive architecture. Unlike Ciampi\u2019s former Berkeley Art Museum, there isn\u2019t a need for more seismic retrofits at Newman Hall, beyond the steel braces that are already in place at a handful of vulnerable areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in another departure from its showy sibling, which in its current incarnation is closed to the public, Newman Hall\u2019s doors will stay open for anyone who wants to stop in and admire it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re opening comments on this story. Share your memories of the church or your views on the architecture. <\/p>\n

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