Isaiah Berlin: A Life — 17: Wolfson

1. 1. Berlin initially saw Iffley College as a 'waste-paper basket' for faculty without college fellowships, but changed his mind after meeting the fellows and sympathizing with their outsider status.
2. 2. Berlin set a condition for taking the Iffley job: he would only accept if he could raise enough money for a proper college building, not just a converted house.
3. 3. Berlin's friends and colleagues, including Alan Bullock and Herbert Hart, thought his decision to lead Iffley was quixotic or repellent, but he felt he needed a new challenge and was disillusioned with All Souls.
4. 4. Berlin successfully raised $4.5 million from the Ford Foundation and £1.5 million from the Wolfson Foundation, with the condition that the college be renamed Wolfson College.
5. 5. The project faced opposition from Labour government figures like Anthony Crosland and Solly Zuckerman, who preferred funding for red-brick universities over Oxbridge.
6. 6. Berlin insisted on a democratic college structure with no high table, common rooms for all, a creche, and family accommodation, reflecting his egalitarian ideals.
7. 7. Berlin personally influenced the architecture of Wolfson College, persuading architects Powell and Moya to adopt a gentle curve for the B block, inspired by Portofino harbor.
8. 8. The founding of Wolfson College helped prevent Oxford from declining into a 'Salamanca' of English intellectual life, by strengthening graduate education in sciences and social sciences.
9. 9. Berlin's mother Marie died in February 1974, which he described as feeling like 'the roof of his life had blown off' and left him with a sense of Zerrissenheit (being torn to pieces).