Sever Hall, Boston: architect, style and history

Sever Hall was built between 1878 and 1880 in Harvard Yard, paid for by a gift from Anne Sever in memory of her husband, James Warren Sever. Designed by H. H. Richardson as an academic building of classrooms, lecture halls, and professors' rooms, it was raised almost entirely in red brick rather than the stone Richardson would later make his signature. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, recognized as one of Richardson's mature masterpieces.

the building

1.3 million bricks. The building consumed about 1.3 million bricks, laid up in a style now known as Richardsonian Romanesque even though Richardson executed it in brick instead of his usual stone, a material suited to an academic building on a largely brick colonial campus.

Twin round bays. The main, west-facing facade is organized symmetrically around two round bays flanking a deeply recessed, semi-circular entrance archway. The east facade repeats the composition with a simpler, rectangular doorway, while the north and south walls are left comparatively plain, punctuated only by windows.

A hidden fourth floor. Sever Hall measures 176 feet 4 inches long by 74 feet 4 inches wide, rising three full stories to a cornice roughly 50 feet up, with a fourth story tucked inside the 30-foot hipped roof above.

the style

Richardson built Sever Hall in the round-arched, heavily massed manner that came to be called Richardsonian Romanesque, but rendered here in red brick rather than the rough-cut stone he used on later buildings, giving it a lighter, more collegiate presence within Harvard Yard.

the architect

H. H. Richardson designed Sever Hall in the late 1870s; its 1970 National Historic Landmark designation specifically recognizes it as one of his mature masterpieces, a high point within the body of work that made Richardsonian Romanesque a defining American style.

significance

Sever Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

more by Henry Hobson Richardson

Crowninshield House Boston
Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow House Boston · 1887
Hayden Building Boston · 1875
Mary Fiske Stoughton House Boston · 1882
Trinity Church Boston · 1877
Trinity Rectory Boston
Austin Hall Boston
Albany City Hall Albany · 1883

nearby

Harvard Art Museums 210 ft · 1895
Fogg Museum 320 ft · Colonial Revival · 1896
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts 500 ft · Brutalism
Memorial Hall 0.1 mi
Harvard Union 0.1 mi · Colonial Revival
University Hall 0.1 mi · Federal · 1815

All 282 buildings in Boston