Memorial Hall
- City
- Boston, MA
Immediately north of Harvard Yard, Memorial Hall was built between 1865 and 1868 to honor Harvard alumni who died defending the Union in the Civil War, described as a symbol of Boston's commitment to the Unionist and abolitionist cause. An alumni "Committee of Fifty" raised $370,000 for the High Victorian Gothic building, then equal to a twelfth of Harvard's endowment, on a former playing field known as the Delta.
the building
The three divisions. Henry James identified the building's three parts: a theater for academic ceremonies (Sanders Theatre); a vast refectory with a timbered roof, hung with portraits and lit by stained windows like an Oxford college hall (Annenberg Hall, originally Alumni Hall); and a high, dim chamber consecrated to the university's Civil War dead (the Memorial Transept). Loker Commons, with student facilities, now sits beneath Annenberg Hall.
the style
Memorial Hall is built in the High Victorian Gothic style, designed to be imposing on its site just north of Harvard Yard.
significance
Memorial Hall is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Church of the New Jerusalem
- Luther Brooks House
- Sever Hall
- William James Hall
- Harvard Art Museums
- Fogg Museum