October 1st - December 21st, 2012
Architecture In Connecticut: A Pictorial History
Table of Contents
Graduate School
of Arts & Sciences.................................................2 Sterling Memorial Library..................................... 4 Branford College.................................................... 6
Vanderbilt Dorm Hall .......................................8 Sterling Law Building......................................10 The History ........................................................12
1
Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
T
he Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1847, is the oldest graduate school in North America. It conferred the first Ph.D. degrees in North America in 1861. Today, the Graduate School is one of twelve schools composing Yale University and the only one that awards the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Philosophy, Master of Arts, Master of Science, and Master of Engineering. The Graduate School comprises approximately 2,300 students, about one-third of whom come from outside the United States. Admission is highly competitive with each entering class making up about 500 students.
3
Sterling Memorial Library
S
terling Memorial Library is the largest library at Yale University, containing over 4 million volumes. It is an example of Gothic revival architecture, designed by James Gamble Rogers, adorned with thousands of panes of stained glass created by G. Owen Bonawit. The Library has 15 levels, each with its own category of books. In 1971, the adjoining underground Cross Campus Library was built. It was renovated and renamed to Bass Library in 2007 and connects to Sterling via an underground tunnel. Bass Library currently contains an additional 150,000 volumes.
5
Yale University New Haven, CT
Branford College
Vanderbilt Dorm Hall
V
anderbilt Hall at Yale University is a U-shaped dormitory built in 1894. Part of Yale‘s Old Campus, it faces Chapel Street and was designed by Charles C. Haight to resemble a large Tudor gatehouse, as does the same architect’s Phelps Hall, which faces New Haven Green. Vanderbilt Hall replaced South College (Union Hall), built in 1793-1794, which was part of Yale’s famous Brick Row. The impressive building has a lavish interior, built to compete with the fancy private dormitories that lined the opposite side of Chapel Street at the time. Major renovations occurred in 1976, when the internal arrangement of the dorm rooms was reorganized. The building was renovated again in 1995-1996 and 2002.
9
Sterling Law Building
Y
ale Law School’s Sterling Law Building is located at 127 Wall Street, and occupies an entire city block. It is bounded by Grove, York, Wall, and High Streets at the heart of the Yale campus in downtown New Haven, Connecticut. The origins of Yale Law School trace to the earliest days of the 19th century when law was learned by clerking as an apprentice in a lawyer’s office. The first law schools, including the one that became Yale, developed out of this apprenticeship system and grew up inside law offices. The Sterling Law Building was named for John William Sterling, a corporate attorney and major benefactor to Yale University.
11
The History
Y
ale’s roots can be traced back to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when the charter was granted for a school “wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences [and] through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State.” In 1718 the school was renamed “Yale College” in gratitude to the Welsh merchant Elihu Yale, who had donated the proceeds from the sale of nine bales of goods together with 417 books and a portrait of King George I. Yale College survived the
American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) intact and, by the end of its first hundred years, had grown rapidly. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought the establishment of the graduate and professional schools that would make Yale a true university. The Yale School of Medicine was chartered in 1810, followed by the Divinity School in 1822, the Law School in 1824, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1847 (which, in 1861, awarded the first Ph.D. in the United States), followed by the schools of Art in 1869, Music in 1894, Forestry & Environmental Studies in 1900, Nursing in 1923, Drama in 1955, Architecture in 1972, and Management in 1974. Today, Yale has matured
into one of the world’s great universities. Its 11,000 students come from all fifty American states and from 108 countries. The 3,200-member faculty is a richly diverse group of men and women who are leaders in their respective fields. The central campus now covers 310 acres (125 hectares) stretching from the School of Nursing in downtown New Haven to tree-shaded residential neighborhoods around the Divinity School. Yale’s 260 buildings include contributions from distinguished architects of every period in its history. Styles range from New England Colonial to High Victorian Gothic, from Moorish Revival to contemporary. Yale’s buildings, towers, lawns, courtyards, walkways,
gates, and arches comprise what one architecture critic has called “the most beautiful urban campus in America.” Yale’s West Campus, located 7 miles west of downtown New Haven on 136 acres, was acquired in 2007 and includes 1.6 million square feet of research, office, and warehouse space that provides opportunities to enhance the University’s medical and scientific research and other academic programs. The University also maintains over 600 acres (243 hectares) of athletic fields and natural preserves just a short bus ride from the center of town.
Sponsored by the Connecticut Architectural Society and the Wadsworth Atheneum
www.wadsworthatheneum.org