Highland Hospital, 1411 East 31st Street, Oakland, Alameda County, CA
Summary
Significance: The Highland Hospital landscape is a relatively intact example of Beaux-Arts public landscape architecture from the 1920s and appears to be significant as an example of the application of Beaux-Arts design principles to a pavilion-style hospital site plan and landscape design, as an example of the use of the Spanish Colonial Revival style in public landscape architecture in California in the 1920s, and as an example of the work of architect Henry H. Meyers and landscape architect Howard Gilkey.
The site design, landscape features, and the health-care, support, and residential buildings at Highland Hospital were designed by Meyers. His site design exhibited the hallmark Beaux-Arts principles of balance,symmetry, proportion, and axiality. The use of similar materials and detailing for the landscape's built features and site furnishings as those used in the exterior treatment of the buildings extended the Spanish Colonial Revival style into the landscape setting and helped to unify the overall design for the hospital facility. The formal outdoor spaces and refined landscape setting were considered a critical component of the "health-restoring activities of the institution," and the landscape -including the main entrance gate, monumental entrance staircase feature and entrance plaza, and the stands of evergreen trees -formed a critical part of the public image of the hospital.
Survey number: HALS CA-111
Building/structure dates: 1919-1926 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1954-1956 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1969 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 2004 Subsequent Work
Tags
Date
Location
Source
Copyright info