Welcome to the Glasshouse

We finished teaching a field school in archaeology on UC Berkeley campus at the end of June (see my June 21 Beastblog post) and now I'm pursuing the archival research for the Observatory (ca. 1886-1973) and Conservatory (ca. 1894-1924) buildings. As fascinating as celestial phenomena are, I must admit that I'm rather more taken with the Conservatory and its connection to Victorian ideas of nature. Campus would have been a very different place with this "crystal palace" of palms and carnations.