Architecture and Academe: College Buildings in New England before 1860

Architecture and Academe: College Buildings in New England before 1860. By Bryant F. Tolies Jr. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2011. 217 pages. $50.00 (hardcover).New England's many historical attractions include venerable colleges, some of which boast surviving examples of antebellum architecture. Soberly decorated facades, porticos, cupolas, and belfries grace older buildings composed of weathered bricks, stones, and wood that have withstood the ravages of time and climate. Architectural historian Bryant Tolies' Architecture and Academe: College Buildings in New England before 1860 focuses on the architecture and related history of individual pre-Civil War buildings on sixteen New England college campuses and their relationship their surroundings. The project, rooted in the author's 1970 dissertation at Boston University, grew out of forty years of site visits and archival research, including use of architectural plans, correspondence, historical photographs and drawings, financial and administrative records, and published articles and reports. The text is complemented by 209 black-and-white illustrations and 28 color plates of individual buildings and architectural groupings. Five of the sixteen schools considered in the study are located in Massachusetts; two were founded in Maine before 1820, when it was still part of the Bay State.Tolles, a native New Englander, is professor emeritus and retired director of the Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware. Architecture and Academe explores the philosophical underpinnings of campus planning and the relationship of educational philosophy collegiate architecture, examining the influences that inspired and shaped New England's early colleges. Although the book's main emphasis is on architecture itself, related economic, intellectual, social, and cultural perspectives are also considered. The evolution of each campus is detailed with frequent reference the motives, conflicts, and problems that confronted administrators and architects, such as insufficient dormitory space, changing classroom requirements, availability of funds, varying priorities, and sometimes contentious disagreements among trustees, teachers, and college presidents.The impact of buildings and overall campus planning on students, including such factors as how and where they would study, worship, and socialize was deliberately and carefully considered by college administrations. The concept of moral guardianship (2) was central early American educational philosophy. Colleges were obligated to provide for the complete educational, spiritual, and social of their students in a suitable architectural setting, and great importance was attached the family unit as an educating force . .. and principal agency of cultural transfer in colonial American life (2). Close personal relationships and intellectual productivity among students were thought be encouraged by flexible, multi-purpose, single-unit building designs and coherent campus plans (2).The visions of planners and architects often competed with and had accommodate local circumstances, including locally available building materials and financial strictures. Colleges far from coastal communities were likely construct vernacular architecture, based on localized needs and conditions. Builders in these contexts made use of indigenous wood, local stone, and locally produced bricks while also aiming for simplicity of design. Their inspiration derived from the published pattern books that circulated among architects, but the patterns were interpreted and implemented economically under local conditions, often resulting in structures that were simple, attractive, and long-lasting.Tolies compares and contrasts Harvard and Yale, which were shaped by different visions of what a campus should look like. Harvard Yard copied in many respects the open quadrangle campuses characteristic of older English colleges. …