Mirrors and Mass: Wayne Thom’s Southern California

Bell Tower, UC Riverside, Calif., 1966

Riverside, CA
1966
A. Quincy Jones Architects

The University of California, Riverside Bell Tower houses a 48-bell, 30-thousand pound carillon donated by UC Regent Phillip L. Boyd and his wife, Dorothy Marmon Boyd. It is one of only five in the country. The architectural plan for UC Riverside was completed by the Los Angeles firm Allison & Rible in 1955 shortly after it had become a general university. The campus is composed of a modern/brutalist style of architecture and the bell tower was designed by the Los Angeles architectural firm of A. Quincy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons and completed in 1966.

Wayne Thom photographed the UC Riverside Bell Tower in 1968 at the start of his architectural photography career. The position of the tower offset in the background of the campus completes a striking picture of the patterned vertical form rising up from the campus’ landscape. In another image, students congregate on the plaza around the tower’s lower reaches, capturing the final warmth of a late afternoon sun being slowly swalled by the tower’s elongating shadows.

References:

“UCR Celebrates Bell Tower's 40th Anniversary with a Chancellor's Carillon Concert Series”, October 2006.

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