Horticultural Hall | |
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General information | |
Address | Huntington Avenue & Massachusetts Avenue |
Town or city | Boston, Massachusetts |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 42°20′35.15″N71°05′06.38″W / 42.3430972°N 71.0851056°W |
Year(s) built | 1901 |
Renovated | 1984 |
Owner | Northeastern University |
Design and construction | |
Architecture firm | Wheelwright and Haven |
Horticultural Hall, at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, was built in 1901. [1] It sits across the street from Symphony Hall. Since 2020, it has been owned by Northeastern University. [2] It is the current home to The William Morris Hunt Memorial Library [3] of the Museum of Fine Arts as well as to offices of Boston magazine, 829 Studios, [4] and Small Army, [5] in addition to a performance space of the New England Conservatory of Music.
The building was the third "Horticultural Hall" built for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. It was designed in the English Renaissance Revival style in 1901 by architects Wheelwright and Haven on land purchased by the Society. (This firm also designed the whimsical Harvard Lampoon Castle in Cambridge, Massachusetts.)
When the Hall was dedicated in 1901, thousands of members and visitors attended its ten-day opening, during which time the hall was filled with amaryllises, azaleas, Pelargonium geraniums, gloxinias, jasmine, trumpet lilies, palms, rhododendrons, wisteria, and a collection of 1,000 orchids, the finest collection gathered in America to that time.
The building's larger lecture hall could seat 300. It was home to many organizations including the Benevolent Fraternity Fruit and Flower Mission, the Wildflower Society, the Garden Club Federation (whose founding in 1927 was organized by the Society), the Boston Mycological Club, the New England Gourd Society, the New England Gladiolus Society, the Herb Society of America, and the Boston Aquarium Society. The building was renovated in 1984, and sold to the neighboring Christian Science Church in 1992.
This building is currently under study by the Boston Landmarks Commission for landmark status.
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has built and occupied a series of "Horticultural Halls" in Boston, including the first on School Street (1845), the second on Tremont Street (1865), and this third hall (1901).
The society's current home is the Elm Bank Horticulture Center, located on the town lines of Wellesley and Dover (2001). [6]
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth, meaning all adult residents of the state are entitled to borrowing and research privileges, and the library receives state funding. The Boston Public Library contains approximately 24 million items, making it the third-largest public library in the United States behind the federal Library of Congress and New York Public Library, which is also privately endowed. The Central Library's McKim building in Copley Square was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 2000.
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works include The Minute Man, an 1874 statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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Copley Square is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. The square is named for painter John Singleton Copley. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to its many cultural institutions, some of which remain today.
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of architecture of the United States. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance façade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue building, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and many Fifth Avenue mansions since destroyed.
The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 79th-most-visited art museum in the world as of 2022.
The Public Garden, also known as Boston Public Garden, is a large park in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston Common. It is a part of the Emerald Necklace system of parks and is bounded by Charles Street and Boston Common to the east, Beacon Street and Beacon Hill to the north, Arlington Street and Back Bay to the west, and Boylston Street to the south. The Public Garden was the first public botanical garden in America.
Huntington Avenue is a thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, beginning at Copley Square and continuing west through the Back Bay, Fenway, Longwood, and Mission Hill neighborhoods. It is signed as Massachusetts Route 9. A section of Huntington Avenue has been officially designated the Avenue of the Arts by the city of Boston.
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, sometimes abbreviated to Mass Hort or MHS, is an American horticultural society based in Massachusetts. It describes itself as the oldest formally organized horticultural institution in the United States. As of 2014, it had some 5,000 members.
Edmund March Wheelwright was one of New England's most important architects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and served as city architect for Boston, Massachusetts from 1891 to 1895.
Martin Milmore (1844–1883) was an American sculptor.
The Francis Parkman House is a National Historic Landmark at 50 Chestnut Street, on Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts. Speculated to be designed by Cornelius Coolidge and built in 1824, it is one of a series of fine brick townhouses on Beacon Hill. Its significance lies in its ownership and occupancy by noted historian and horticulturalist Francis Parkman (1823–1893) from 1865 until his death. While living here, Parkman produced a significant portion of his landmark work, France and England in North America, a multi-volume epic history recounting the conflict for control of North America in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Symphony and Horticultural Halls are historic buildings at the corner of Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues in the Fenway–Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The halls were listed as a pair on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Symphony Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999.
The H. H. Richardson Historic District of North Easton is a National Historic Landmark District in the village of North Easton in Easton, Massachusetts. It consists of five buildings designed by noted 19th-century architect Henry Hobson Richardson, and The Rockery, a war memorial designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Charles Brigham was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Henry Van Brunt FAIA was an American architect and architectural writer.
This article is a timeline of the history of the city of Boston, Massachusetts, US.
Chickering Hall (1901–1912) was an auditorium in Boston, Massachusetts, located on Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay. It stood adjacent to Horticultural Hall. Tenants included the Emerson College of Oratory and D.M. Shooshan's "Ladies' and Gents' Cafe." In 1912 it became the St. James Theatre, and later the Uptown Theatre. The building existed until 1963, when it was demolished.
Horticultural Hall (1865–1901) of Boston, Massachusetts, was the headquarters of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in the later 19th century. It stood at no.100-102 Tremont Street, at the corner of Bromfield Street, opposite the Granary Burying Ground. Architects Gridley J.F. Bryant and Arthur Gilman designed the building. Sculptor Martin Milmore created horticulturally-themed statuary for the building's exterior: "three ancient Roman goddesses ... Ceres, goddess of agriculture; Flora, goddess of flowers; and Pomona, goddess of fruit trees." In the 1880s: "the ground floor [was] occupied by stores; the second story by the Library Room of the society and a hall for the weekly exhibitions; and the upper story by a large and elegant hall used ... at the annual and other important exhibitions. Both of these halls [were] often used for concerts and the better class of entertainments. The society's library, comprising over 4,000 volumes, [was] the most valuable collection of horticultural works in the United States. The halls [were] adorned with portraits and busts of the presidents, founders, and benefactors of the society."
Albert Cameron Burrage, known as A. C. Burrage, was an industrialist, attorney, horticulturist and philanthropist from the United States.