Yale Libraries

Yale University – Linsly Hall // 1906

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Just 15 years after the Chittenden Memorial Library (last post) was constructed to provide overflow space for Yale’s Old Library, the college overseers sought to expand yet again. Linsly Hall was built in 1906 as an addition to the 1880s Richardsonian Romanesque Chittenden library building, but in the Collegiate Gothic style, which was quickly becoming a preferred architecture style for the campus. Linsly Hall was built as a connector between the two library buildings with a tunnel-like passage between the structures. This was quickly deemed inadequate for a college of this stature, and the 1930s Sterling Library was built outside of the yard decades later. Architect Charles C. Haight designed Linsly Hall following the same design elements as his popular Vanderbilt Hall, built 10 years prior nearby. Today, the Linsly Hall (and the adjoining Chittenden Hall) is classroom space.

Yale University – Chittenden Hall // 1889

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As Yale’s 1842 Old Library was outgrown by larger class sizes and a growing college library collection, overseers began planning for a new library annex which could support the programming. Architect J. Cleaveland Cady was commissioned to design the Chittenden Memorial Library, this underappreciated structure, which is today hemmed into a cramped space in the yard between a later addition (Linsly Hall) and McClennan Hall. The Chittenden Memorial Library was a gift to the college by U.S. Representative Simeon Baldwin Chittenden in memory of his only daughter, Mary Chittenden Lusk (1840-1871) nearly two decades following her untimely death. The handsome Richardsonian Romanesque style library building also retains its original stained glass window titled, “Education” by Louis Tiffany which today is in the building’s former reading room, now a large classroom. When the library moved to a new building in the 1930s, Chittenden Memorial Library became Chittenden Hall and is classroom space.

Yale University – Dwight Hall // 1842

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One of the most architecturally significant college buildings in the United States, Dwight Hall was designed to house the growing book collection of Yale College as its library. The former Yale College Library, now Dwight Hall, represents a significant shift in Yale’s campus architecture from Georgian and Federal brick buildings to the Gothic mode which the campus is largely known for today. Dwight Hall was designed by local architect Henry Austin with the guidance of esteemed architects Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, both experts in early high-style Gothic buildings in America. The design, to me, resembles the 1443 King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England. The structure is constructed of brownstone from Portland, Connecticut, and it is composed of a central block with two smaller flanking wings on either side connected by smaller linking spaces. At the yard facade, two octagonal towers with domed copper roofs rise, flanking a large, pointed lancet arch window that extends above the doorway. The library was outgrown fairly quickly, necessitating an annex next door and eventually collections were transferred to Sterling Memorial Library in 1930, the Old Library was converted to a chapel and community service building and is known as Dwight Hall.