connecticut architecture

St. Elmo Hall – Rosenfeld Hall // 1912

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St. Elmo Society at Yale was founded in 1889 as a chapter of the national fraternity Delta Phi, and it is today one of the “ancient eight consortium” of secret societies at the university. The society’s original building was erected in 1895 and provided housing, meeting spaces, a library, smoking room, and other recreational spaces for the members. Just over a decade later, the group’s increasing wealth and membership necessitated a larger building. This building, named St. Elmo Hall was designed by architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison in an Elizabethan style and built in 1912 for the society, replacing its former residence hall. The society saw dwindling funding and during World War II, St. Elmo Hall became a convalescent hospital for soldiers who were out of the hospital but still need observation. After WWII, the group began leasing some rooms out to Yale University, who eventually purchased the building in 1962, renaming it Rosenfeld Hall after Richard Rosenfeld ’63. The L-shaped building is sited opening up to the corner lot and is Neo-Gothic in style, likely drawing inspiration from Yale’s established Gothic stylistic influence.

Berzelius Tomb // 1910

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Yale, like other Ivy League colleges, has a long and complex history of secret societies. The secret societies all are headquartered at their own buildings, called “tombs”. These are massive, very impressive structures without windows or signage and all share an unmistakable message with their architecture: “Private; keep out.” One of the lesser-known tombs at Yale is the Berzelius Tomb, completed by 1910 from plans by architect Donn Barber. The Berzelius was established in 1848 as a secret society and formerly was located in Berzelius Hall, a Romanesque style building. The tomb is sited on an difficult lot at the convergence of three main roads but holds its own architecturally as a highly ornamented box. This austere tomb is built of limestone, with a balustrade and detailed cornice at the roof, but the main attraction is the entrance, which is a double brass door with floral panels, all surrounded by a Classical surround. Above the entrance, a limestone panel showcases the Society’s insignia with fruit and flower swags.

New Haven Museum // 1929

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New Haven, Connecticut is known for its Gothic and Modernist architecture, but as it is located in New England, some good Colonial Revival architecture is not hard to find! The New Haven Museum building on Whitney Avenue was built for the New Haven Colony Historical Society, which was established in 1862 to collect, preserve, and publish historical matter related to the history of the greater New Haven community. The Society was housed in various locations around the city throughout the 19th century until 1929 when it relocated to its present building designed by J. Frederick Kelly, a noted colonial revival architect. The symmetrical building with its eleven-bay facade is notable for its arched recessed portico and rooftop cupola. The building remains occupied by the New Haven Museum to this day.

Yale University Art Gallery // 1953

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Yale University’s School of Architecture was in the midst transition when Louis Kahn joined the faculty in 1947. The post-war years at Yale trended away from the school’s Beaux-Arts lineage towards the avant-garde, and Modernist principles brought over from European architects. When the University called for a new wing for its existing Venetian Gothic style Art Gallery Building (1928), they obviously had no choice but to make a statement for the future of the school. Architecture professor Louis Kahn worked with Anne Tyng, who was both a professional partner and his “muse”, who heavily influenced his works, including here where she designed the concrete tetrahedral slab ceiling at the interior galleries. As a professor and practicing architect, Kahn hoped for students and visitors would engage with the building, even interior spaces often overlooked design-wise, such as the stairwells. While the facades are fairly minimal in design details, because the attention was paid to the interiors, which provide protection from natural light while also allowing for large floor plates for customizable exhibitions. The structure is Yale’s first true Modernist building on a campus which soon after was dominated by some of the country’s most iconic examples of the style.

Yale University – Trumbull Gallery // 1832-1901

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Pre-1869 image of Trumbull Gallery, Yale Archives

Before there was Street Hall or the Old Yale Art Gallery Building, there was the Trumbull Gallery, the first college-connected art museum in the United States. This building was erected in 1832 by artist and collector, John Trumbull (1756-1843), who specialized in Revolutionary-era works, and was known as the “Painter of the Revolution”. In his later years, Trumbull sold 28 paintings and 60 miniature portraits to the Yale College, and helped establish the college-affiliated art museum. He is said to have designed this Classical style building, to house his collections, all with minimal windows to protect his collection from direct sunlight. The gallery also housed a crypt for Trumbull and his wife, hence its tomb-like appearance. When Street Hall was built, the collection and tombs were relocated there, and again in the late 1920s when the Art Gallery was constructed. In 1869, Yale College added windows to the building and operated the school treasury from here until it was demolished in 1901. The Trumbull Gallery stood just in front of the Old Library.

Yale University – Street Hall // 1866

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Closing out this series on Yale’s Old Campus, I present one of the finest Victorian Gothic collegiate buildings in the United States, Street Hall. Street Hall was designed by Peter B. Wight (who had just completed the Venetian Gothic style National Academy of Design in New York City) and opened in 1866. The building opened as the Yale School of the Fine Arts, which was the first art school on an American college campus. The building was named after Augustus Russell Street (1791–1866), a Yale graduate and New Haven businessman who donated the funds for the building’s construction on the condition that all residents of the city could enroll in the school, wanting a bridge between citizens of New Haven (“Town”) and the college “Gown”). Augustus Street and his wife, Caroline Leffingwell had seven daughters together, all of whom predeceased them. It was likely the fact he was around so many women in his life that he also required the Yale School of the Fine Arts to admit both male and female students (Yale would become co-educational and admit women to all programs in 1969.) Street Hall is a landmark example of the Victorian/Venetian Gothic style with lancet arches, polychromatic stone, and trefoil and quatrefoil stone medallions. Street Hall is now connected to, and is a part of the Yale University Art Gallery.

Yale University – Alumni Hall // 1851-1911

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Detroit Publishing Company image

Alumni Hall at Yale was designed and built between 1851-1853, at the northwest corner of Yale’s Old Campus. Its was designed by Gothic specialist architect Alexander Jackson Davis, who completed Dwight Hall (the Old Library) a some years prior. The building had a large, open floorplan on the first floor for large gatherings as well as the entrance examinations, along with the biennial examinations that every student had to take at the end of his sophomore and senior years. As the building turned 50 years old, the campus around it was already looking very different. Shifting priorities for dormitory space in the yard necessitated its demolition for Wright Hall (next post). Alumni Hall was razed in 1911, but its two crenelated towers were salvaged when the building was demolished. They were incorporated into Weir Hall which has been incorporated into Jonathan Edwards College, one of Yale’s residential colleges.

Yale University – Phelps Hall and Gate // 1896

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After Lawrance and Welch halls (previous two posts) were built on the eastern edge of Yale’s Old Campus, there was a small space between the two that needed to be enclosed to provide a true cloister for students, shielding them from the noise and ever-developing Downtown of New Haven. Architect Charles C. Haight designed the new hall to resemble a medieval gatehouse. The simple, tall rectangular mass has octagonal towers at each corner with copper domes on top and a crenelated parapet resembling an old English castle spanning between them. On the ground floor is the Phelps Gate, the main entrance to the Old Campus from the east. Its namesake was the late William Walter Phelps, an 1860 Yale graduate who served as a Congressman and as ambassador to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The building holds an important role in the annual commencement ceremonies, which begin in the New Haven Green and pass through to the Old Campus through this gateway.

Yale University – Welch Hall // 1891

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As Yale University continued to enclose its Old Yard with elongated dormitories in the second half of the 19th century, the proprietors began to experiment with slight deviations to the prototypical Victorian Gothic piles built in the previous decades. Following a financial gift from Pierce N. Welch, an 1862 graduate of Yale College, and his sisters in memory of their late father, Harmanus M. Welch, the college hired architect Bruce Price to furnish plans for the new dormitory. Welch Hall is built of Longmeadow Freestone, the building is more Romanesque in style with arched masonry openings, the rough hewn stone walls, and pointed dormers projecting through the eave lines.

Yale University – Battell Chapel // 1874

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As the Old Campus of Yale was being enclosed at its north and east by Farnam and Durfee halls, architect Russell Sturgis was again tasked to design a new building, but for a corner site; though this time, he would design a college chapel. Built between 1874–76, it was funded primarily with gifts from Joseph Battell. Succeeding two previous chapel buildings on Yale’s Old Campus, it provided space for daily chapel services, which were mandatory for Yale students until 1926, which were all-male and mostly Protestant. The large stone chapel is constructed of New Jersey brownstone with decorative elements in sandstone. The design of the Victorian Gothic chapel is great, but how it sits with the entrance unceremoniously dumping out to the end wall of Durfee Hall leaves much to be desired.