Harman Patil (Editor)

Austin Hall (Harvard University)

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Built
  
1881

Opened
  
1881

Added to NRHP
  
19 April 1972

NRHP Reference #
  
72000128

Architectural style
  
Romanesque architecture

Architect
  
Henry Hobson Richardson

Austin Hall (Harvard University) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Similar
  
Sever Hall, Mary Fiske Stoughton House, Ames Gate Lodge, Marshall Field's Wholesal, William Watts Sherman

Austin hall harvard university top 11 facts


Austin Hall is a classroom building of the Harvard Law School designed by noted American architect H. H. Richardson. The first building purposely built for an American law school, it was also the first dedicated home of Harvard Law. It is located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Contents

Map of Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

The hall was built 1882–1884 in Romanesque Revival style. Single-story wings flank a heavy, two-story central mass, with the reading room extending rearwards to form an overall T shape. A central entryway framed with Romanesque triple arch is set deep within the building's flat front facade, with an asymmetric stairway tower protruding forwards to its right. The building is faced with Longmeadow sandstone in striking polychrome patterns, the light stones forming checkerboards within dark, reddish walls. The arches are of pale Ohio sandstone, as is the thick cornice band incised with a lengthy and sententious motto.

Austin Hall's first floor contains three large classrooms; these were designed to complement the new law school curriculum that was being implemented at the time by Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell, including large core classes employing the Socratic method. As this curriculum has been imitated by other American law schools, so has the classroom layout first employed at Austin Hall.

The building's second floor contains the Ames Courtroom, where students argue moot cases before panels of judges. A United States Supreme Court justice usually presides over the moot court's final round. The reading room's interior has been judged particularly fine for its ornamented fireplace and tie beams carved with the heads of dragons and boars.

References

Austin Hall (Harvard University) Wikipedia