The very first posting I did on this site, in 2006, was of my undergraduate alma mater, UCLA. I was back in L.A. a couple weeks ago and took some time to photograph UCLA again during its centennial year.* As shown in the following montage, banners adorn the campus, celebrating many of the university's accomplishments.
A lot has happened on the UCLA campus over the past 13 years. The basketball arena, Pauley Pavilion, was renovated during 2011-12 and, with the re-opening, a statue of legendary coach John Wooden was added.
UCLA also updated some of its academic buildings.
Shown above is the Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library, which was ranked No. 20 among law-school buildings in the world. The law library, which involved a major expansion of the previous one, re-opened in 1998, so I guess I could have included it in my 2006 photo essay, had I thought to do so.
Next, we have the Herb Alpert School of Music, whose additions to the previous music department opened in 2014. According to the Alpert School's website, it is "The only school of music in the UC system." Alpert is a trumpet player in the smooth-jazz style, whose popularity peaked in the 1960s and '70s. Now in his eighties, he is still performing. He was also a major recording executive, with A&M Records (Alpert & Moss).
Drawing upon President Eisenhower's characterization of the U.S.'s military-industrial complex, I've long said that UCLA has a construction-industrial complex. This is especially so in the biomedical section of the campus, which I did not photograph. Because of all the construction, I always find it refreshing to go back to the original quad of the campus (shown below), with the four original buildings.
The building toward the back, with the two rectangular towers, is Royce Hall. On the far right-hand side of the photo is Haines Hall. The other original edifices (not shown) are Powell Library and Kaplan Hall (the Humanities Building, formerly Kinsey Hall for physics).
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*UCLA was established in 1919, at which time it was located on Vermont Avenue, between Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. In 1929, the university moved to its current Westwood location (the Vermont Avenue site became L.A. City College).
