Hewitt Quadrangle

Last updated
Commons and the Hewitt Quadrangle Yale-University-Commons-Building-Schwarzman-Center-Hewitt-Quadrangle-Beinecke-Plaza-New-Haven-Connecticut-Apr-2014.jpg
Commons and the Hewitt Quadrangle

Hewitt University Quadrangle, commonly known as Beinecke Plaza, is a plaza at the center of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the home of the university's administration, main auditorium, and dining facilities. The quadrangle was created with the construction of the university's Bicentennial Buildings and Woodbridge Hall in 1901. Until 1917, it was known as University Court. The completion of the Beinecke Library created subterranean library facilities beneath the courtyard, establishing the present appearance of the paved plaza and sunken courtyard.

Contents

Buildings

Figure-ground diagram of Hewitt Quadrangle Hewitt.png
Figure-ground diagram of Hewitt Quadrangle

Bicentennial Buildings

The Bicentennial Buildings–University Commons, the Memorial Rotunda, and Woolsey Hall–were the first buildings constructed for Yale University as opposed to one of its constituent entities (Yale College, Sheffield Scientific School, or others), reflecting a greater emphasis on central administration initiated by Presidents Timothy Dwight and Arthur Twining Hadley. [1] Constructed in 1901-2 for the university's bicentennial, the limestone Beaux-Arts buildings linked the College buildings on the Old Campus with the Sheffield Scientific buildings on Hillhouse Avenue. [2] They were designed by John M. Carrère and Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings.

Bicentennial Memorial Rotunda Yale-Bicentennial-Rotunda.jpg
Bicentennial Memorial Rotunda

The University Commons, simply known as "Commons" on campus, is a timber-trussed banqueting hall. [2] It served as the university-wide dining hall until the completion of the residential colleges, Sterling Law Building, and Hall of Graduate Studies in the 1930s.

Woolsey Hall was the university's first large secular assembly hall, with 2,691 seats. [2] It holds one of the largest organs in the world: the Newberry Memorial Organ, a 1928 Skinner organ.

The Rotunda, with tablets on the walls commemorating Yale's war dead is a double-sized, domed, colonnaded version of Bramante's Tempietto built in 1502 on the site of St. Peter's martyrdom in Rome. Above the memorial is the President's Room, used for donor and ceremonial receptions.

Woodbridge Hall

Also completed in 1901, Woodbridge Hall is the main administrative building of the university. The Office of the President of the University has been stationed on the building's second floor since the administration of Arthur Twining Hadley. Adjacent is the Corporation Room, the boardroom of Yale's governing body. The building is named for Timothy Woodbridge, one of the ten founding ministers of the school, whose names of are engraved on the building's facade.

Beinecke Library

The visible portion of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, on the east side of the plaza, designed by Gordon Bunshaft, is like the visible portion of an iceberg. With three underground levels extending under the plaza, most of the library is hidden.

Sculpture

Yale University World War I Cenotaph YaleCenotaph.jpg
Yale University World War I Cenotaph

Before the colonnade of the Commons is a memorial cenotaph. Its inscription reads:

In Memory of the Men of Yale who true to Her Traditions gave their Lives that Freedom might not perish from the Earth. 1914 Anno Domini 1918.

Behind the cenotaph, one can see inscribed the names of World War I battles of Cambrai, Argonne, Somme, Chateau-Thierry, Ypres, St. Mihiel and Marne. Woodbridge Hall, located on the west side of the plaza, was designed by the firm of Howells & Stokes and is French Renaissance in style. It contains the central administration of the university. The building was named for Reverend Timothy Woodbridge, one of the founders of Yale College.

The Beinecke Library's sunken courtyard, visible but not accessible from the plaza, contains Isamu Noguchi's sculpture The Garden (Pyramid, Sun, and Cube). The three marble sculptures represent time, the sun, and chance. Alexander Calder's sculpture Gallows and Lollipops stands on the plaza. The Claes Oldenburg sculpture Lipstick Ascending on a Caterpillar Tread (now located in Morse College) was once on the plaza.

Use

As the symbolic heart of the university—and as the space in front of the administration building—Beinecke Plaza is occasionally the site of rallies and protests. These have included labor rallies held by the Federation of Hospital and University Employees and their supporters. Student protests have included a 16-day occupation of the plaza by Students Against Sweatshops in support of an ethical licensing policy (spring 2002). Most notable was the 1986 construction of a shanty-town erected to demand Yale's divestment from apartheid South Africa. After students erected the shanty-town, designed to mimic a Soweto shanty and named after Winnie Mandela, the university administration ordered its removal and demolished it. The destruction of the shanty-town, which required the arrest of dozens of protesters, unleashed an outpouring of anger and demands that the shanty-town be recreated. Eventually the university relented and the town was resurrected, only to be burned down by an irate alumnus two years later and replaced by a "memorial wall".

In April 2024, students under the moniker Occupy Beinecke maintained a weeklong daytime occupation and a weekend overnight encampment of the plaza, calling on Yale to divest its endowment from weapons manufacturers. [3] The encampment was forcibly cleared by Yale and New Haven police after three days with 48 protesters arrested, but the protest was one of the first in a global wave of pro-Palestinian encampments on university campuses. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale University</span> Private university in New Haven, Connecticut, US

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library</span> Rare book library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts and is one of the largest collections of such texts. Established by a gift of the Beinecke family and given its own financial endowment, the library is financially independent from the university and is co-governed by the University Library and Yale Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saybrook College</span>

Saybrook College is one of the 14 residential colleges at Yale University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memorial Quadrangle</span> Building at Yale University

The Memorial Quadrangle is a residential quadrangle at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Commissioned in 1917 to supply much-needed student housing for Yale College, it was Yale's first Collegiate Gothic building and its first project by James Gamble Rogers, who later designed ten other major buildings for the university. The Quadrangle has been occupied by Saybrook College and Branford College, two of the original ten residential colleges at Yale. The collegiate system of Yale University was largely inspired by the Oxbridge model of residential and teaching colleges at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sterling Memorial Library</span> Main library building of the Yale University Library

Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revival campus. The library's tower has sixteen levels of bookstacks containing over 4 million volumes. Several special collections—including the university's Manuscripts & Archives—are also housed in the building. It connects via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, which holds an additional 150,000 volumes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierson College</span>

Pierson College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1933, it is named for Abraham Pierson, a founder and the first rector of the Collegiate School, the college later known as Yale. With just under 500 undergraduate members, Pierson is the largest of Yale's residential colleges by number of students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silliman College</span>

Silliman College is a residential college at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, named for scientist and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman. It opened in September 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges, and contains buildings constructed as early as 1901.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Edwards College</span> Residential College at Yale University

Jonathan Edwards College is a residential college at Yale University. It is named for theologian and minister Jonathan Edwards, a 1720 graduate of Yale College. JE's residential quadrangle was the first to be completed in Yale's residential college system, and was opened to undergraduates in 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolsey Hall</span> Primary auditorium at Yale University

Woolsey Hall is the primary auditorium at Yale University, located on the campus' Hewitt Quadrangle in New Haven, Connecticut. It was built as part of the Bicentennial Buildings complex that includes the Memorial Rotunda and the University Commons for the Yale bicentennial celebration in 1901, and was designed by the Beaux-Arts architectural firm Carrère and Hastings. With approximately 2,650 seats, it is the university's largest auditorium and hosts concerts, performances, and university ceremonies including the annual freshman convocation, senior baccalaureate, and presidential inaugurations. The building is named for Theodore Dwight Woolsey, President of Yale from 1846 through 1871.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Gamble Rogers</span> American architect

James Gamble Rogers was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrère and Hastings</span> American architecture firm

Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings, was an American architecture firm specializing in Beaux-Arts architecture. Located in New York City, the firm practiced from 1885 until 1929, although Hastings practiced alone after Carrère died in an automobile accident in 1911.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Campus</span>

The Old Campus is the oldest area of the Yale University campus in New Haven, Connecticut. It is the principal residence of Yale College freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Literature, and Philosophy. Fourteen buildings—including eight dormitories and two chapels—surround a 4-acre (1.6 ha) courtyard with a main entrance from the New Haven Green known as Phelps Gate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pompeo Coppini</span> American sculptor

Pompeo Luigi Coppini was an Italian born American sculptor. Although his works can be found in Italy, Mexico and a number of U.S. states, the majority of his work can be found in Texas. He is particularly famous for the Alamo Plaza work, Spirit of Sacrifice, a.k.a. The Alamo Cenotaph, as well as numerous statues honoring Texan figures, such as Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the fourth President of Texas A&M University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabethan Club</span> Social club at Yale University

The Elizabethan Club is a social club at Yale University named for Queen Elizabeth I and her era. Its profile and members tend toward a literary disposition, and conversation is one of the Club's chief purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillian Goldman Law Library</span> Law library of Yale Law School

The Lillian Goldman Law Library in Memory of Sol Goldman, commonly known as the Yale Law Library, is the law library of Yale Law School. It is located in the Sterling Law Building and has almost 800,000 volumes of print materials and about 10,000 active serial titles, in which there are 200,000 volumes of foreign and international law materials. The library was named after a US$20 million donation made by Lillian Goldman, widow of real estate magnate Sol Goldman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale University Library</span> Library system of Yale University

The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new “Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 million volumes housed in fifteen university buildings and is the third-largest academic library system in North America and the second-largest housed on a singular campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sterling Law Building</span> Yale Law School building in New Haven, Connecticut.

Sterling Law Building houses the Yale Law School. It is located at 127 Wall Street, New Haven, Connecticut, close to the downtown area, in the heart of the Yale campus. It occupies one city block between the Hall of Graduate Studies, the Beinecke Library, Sterling Library, and the Grove Street Cemetery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Massey Rhind</span> Scottish-American sculptor

John Massey Rhind was a Scottish-American sculptor. Among Rhind's better known works is the marble statue of Dr. Crawford W. Long located in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D.C. (1926).

<i>Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks</i> Sculpture by Claes Oldenburg

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks is a weathering steel sculpture by Claes Oldenburg. It is located at Morse College Courtyard, at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science Hill (Yale University)</span> Area of the Yale University campus

Science Hill is an area of the Yale University campus primarily devoted to physical and biological sciences. It is located in the Prospect Hill neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut.

References

  1. Kelley 1974, pp. 318.
  2. 1 2 3 Pinnell 1999, pp. 115.
  3. 1 2 Yu, Isaac; Park, Ellie; Arora Seth, Anika; Lin, Karen; Reich, Josie; Bober, Dylan (April 30, 2024). "Pro-Palestine protests and arrests at Yale: a visual timeline". Yale Daily News . Archived from the original on May 28, 2024. Retrieved May 28, 2024.

Bibliography