Émile Bénard

Bénard was the winner of the 1899 International Competition for the Phoebe A. Hearst Architectural Plan to design the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, with his project "Roma."

Emile Bénard declined to be appointed supervising architect, and in 1901 the position was offered to John Galen Howard, the fourth-place winner of the competition.

The London Spectator wrote, "On the face of it this is a grand scheme, reminding one of those famous competitions in Italy in which Brunelleschi and Michelangelo took part.

Amidst the most pleasant hills on an elevated site, commanding a wide sea view, is to be placed a home of Universal Science and a seat of the muses.

"[3] His grand scheme, to no one's surprise, bore a certain resemblance to the Place de la Concorde superimposed upon the bumps and creases of the Berkeley highlands.

Although the construction of the building was well underway by 1910, the deposition of President Porfirio Díaz and the subsequent revolution changed the project's fate which culminated with its cancellation.

In the 1930s, when destruction of the incomplete structure was contemplated, architect Carlos Obregón Santacilia convinced the presidential administration to save the cupola of the building in the form of the Monumento a la Revolución (Monument to the Revolution).