Photo Credits: Mad Men; BEST; Crown Zellerbach via Life Magazine We watch Mad Men because we no longer live in a time where we can smoke, drink, or have sex at work. Well, we also watch it for the furniture and the clothes plus the booze and sex. More entertaining than Bewitched, its situation-comedy ad-agency ancestor. Easier to watch than cinema history like Joan Crawford's immortal cinematic vehicle The Best of Everything, where the publishing company sets, sex and booze seem to have been a direct inspiration for Mad Men. Along with sex and booze. True, the obsession that is Mad Men is set in New York, but it could just as easily be in San Francisco's 1959 Crown-Zellerbach building.
And of course, now students at UC Berkeley can take a Mad Men course (two credits!) as part of UCB's DeCal program, a student-run program of electives outside the usual course material. Not entirely a leap- DeCal has its roots in Berkeley's 1960's Free Speech Movement. What better place to deconstruct the era? The course offering was over-subscribed and will be repeated- we love that eighty people most likely born in the 'Eighties showed up for a class with thirty places about the culture of the 'Sixties. Curbed National's all about Mad Men as well, with the floor plans of Sterling Cooper Draper Price and where to buy the furniture in Don Draper's office.
· The Best of Everything [BELT]
· Crown-Zellerbach Headquarters [SOM]
· "Mad Men" in a Class All it's Own at UC Berkeley>/a> [SFGate]
· DeCal [DeCal Program. UCB]
· Mad Men Coverage [Curbed National Archives]
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