"You’ve likely seen it on walks across the UC Berkeley campus — the little one-story red brick building northeast of Sproul Hall and near Strawberry Creek. It’s hard not to admire the colorful, Byzantine-style mosaic tile murals on its east façade that depict people playing music, dancing, painting and sculpting.
But after more than 50 years as a storage space, the decaying and largely unused 1904 structure known as the Old Art Gallery will be readied starting today for a notable new role — as Switch Station #8, the future home of electrical equipment that will route energy throughout campus.
When complete, the Romanesque Revival-style building designed by John Galen Howard, who became the UC’s supervising architect in 1901, will return to its original function as a power house. This time, however, it will serve as part of the Clean Energy Campus, a system designed to transition Berkeley to 100% clean energy by 2030."
Read more about this step in the Clean Energy Campus plan here.