Etcheverry Hall


Etcheverry Hall is a building on the UC Berkeley campus that houses the departments of mechanical, industrial, and nuclear engineering of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Etcheverry Hall is named after Bernard A. Etcheverry, professor of irrigation and drainage from 1915–51, who later served as chair of the Department of Irrigation and Drainage from 1923–51. Built in 1964, it is located on the north side of Hearst Avenue, across the street from the main campus.
Etcheverry Hall's basement housed the Berkeley Research Reactor between 1966 and 1987.

Bernard A. Etcheverry

Bernard Alfred Etcheverry was born in San Diego, California on June 30, 1881 and graduated from UC Berkeley in 1902. He married Helen Hanson on August 6, 1903 and together they had two sons, Bernard Earle and Alfred Starr.
His first teaching appointment was to Berkeley's department of civil engineering, where he taught during the 1902–03 academic year. After that, he taught physics and civil engineering at the University of Nevada for two years before returning to Berkeley for the remainder of his career, from 1905 until his retirement in 1951. In addition to teaching, he served as an engineer for the construction of the Hearst Greek Theatre on the Berkeley campus. He moved into a new home in Kensington in 1953.
Professor Etcheverry died on October 26, 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut.

Renovations

The basement reactor room currently houses large experiments for the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Berkeley, including the Compact Integral Effects Test, which studies the thermal hydraulics, design, and operation of fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactors.
The V&A Café opened on the third floor of Etcheverry Hall in June 2017. This followed a series of renovations begun in 2016 planned to take place over a 10-year period to modernize the building.