Marsh Chapel | |
---|---|
Location | Boston, Massachusetts |
Country | United States |
Denomination | Non-denominational |
Architecture | |
Functional status | Active |
Architect(s) | Ralph Adams Cram |
Architectural type | Chapel |
Style | Gothic revival |
Groundbreaking | 1949 |
Completed | 1950 |
Clergy | |
Dean | Robert Hill |
Marsh Chapel is a building on the campus of Boston University used as the official place of worship of the school. It was named for Daniel L. Marsh, a former president of BU and a Methodist minister. The building is Gothic in style. [1]
While Methodism, the university's historical denomination, exerts a great influence on the chapel, it is formally non-denominational. The current dean of Marsh Chapel is Rev. Dr. Robert Hill, an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church. [1]
Plans for a riverside chapel at the university were made as early as 1920, when the university purchased the 15-acre (0.061 km2) Charles River Campus and commissioned a master plan from architect Ralph Adams Cram. Originally, the chapel was to be complemented by the Alexander Graham Bell tower, a Gothic Revival administrative structure named for the inventor of the telephone and other innovations. [2]
The chapel was not constructed until after the Great Depression and Second World War. Ralph Adams Cram was selected as its architect. He designed the building in the Gothic style. The building was dedicated in 1950. Because of competition from Modernist and other architectural influences, the chapel marked the end of a period of Collegiate Gothic construction on American campuses.[ citation needed ]
The chapel was the site of the Marsh Chapel Experiment on Good Friday in 1962. Researchers studying human thought included Walter Pahnke; Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor and later psychedelic guru; and Richard Alpert (who would later become known as Ram Dass).
Between 1953 and 1965, African-American theologian Howard Thurman presided the chapel as its dean. Thurman exerted an enormous influence on the work of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr., who studied at Boston University. [3]
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont, before being chartered in Boston in 1869.
Ralph Adams Cram was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic Revival style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partnerships in which he worked. Cram was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was an American architect celebrated for his work in Gothic Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival design. He also designed notable typefaces, including Cheltenham and Merrymount for the Merrymount Press. Later in life, Goodhue freed his architectural style with works like El Fureidis in Montecito, one of the three estates designed by Goodhue.
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europe. A form of historicist architecture, it took its inspiration from English Tudor and Gothic buildings. It has returned in the 21st century in the form of prominent new buildings at schools and universities including Princeton, Washington University, and Yale.
Howard Washington Thurman was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
Charles Donagh Maginnis was an Irish-American architect. He emigrated to Boston at age 18, trained as an architect and went on to form the firm Maginnis & Walsh, designing ecclesiastical and campus buildings across America. From 1937 to 1939 Maginnis held the office of President of the American Institute of Architects.
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.
The Cathedral Church of St. Paul is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. In 1824 its congregation formed as the first Episcopal and first Protestant church in the Michigan Territory.
Boston University School of Theology (STH) is the oldest theological seminary of American Methodism and the founding school of Boston University, the largest private research university in New England. It is one of thirteen theological schools maintained by the United Methodist Church. BUSTH is a member of the Boston Theological Institute consortium.
Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development is the school of education within Boston University. It is located on the University's Charles River Campus in Boston, Massachusetts in the former Lahey Clinic building. BU Wheelock has more than 31,000 alumni, 65 full-time faculty and both undergraduate and graduate students. Boston University School of Education was ranked 34th in the nation in 2018 by U.S. News & World Report in their rankings of graduate schools of education. The School of Education is a member institution of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).
The Parish of All Saints, Ashmont, is a church of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts located at 209 Ashmont Street in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Built 1892-1929 for a congregation founded in 1867, it was the first major commission of architect Ralph Adams Cram, a major influence in the development of early 20th-century Gothic church and secular architecture. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and is protected by a preservation easement held by Historic New England.
Cleveland Tower is a bell tower containing a carillon on the campus of Princeton University. Inspired by Boston College's Gasson Hall, the design by Ralph Adams Cram is one of the defining Collegiate Gothic architectural features of the university's Graduate College. The tower was built in 1913 as a memorial to former university trustee and U.S. President Grover Cleveland. A bust of the former president is the centerpiece of the grand chamber at the tower's ground level.
All Saints Church is an historic Episcopal church located at 51 Concord Street in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in the United States. Completed in 1914, it is a completely realized example of an English country church as interpreted by the architect Ralph Adams Cram. On December 1, 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Cram and Ferguson Architects is an architecture firm based in Concord, Massachusetts. The company was founded as a partnership in 1889 by the "preeminent American Ecclesiastical Gothicist" Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Francis Wentworth. In 1890 they were joined by Bertram Goodhue, who was made a partner in 1895.
The Boston University Castle is a Tudor Revival-style mansion owned by Boston University on Bay State Road. The school typically uses it for receptions or concerts, but also rents out The Castle to cater events and special occasions.
The Chapel of St. Anne is a historic Episcopal chapel on Claremont Avenue in Arlington, Massachusetts. Built in 1915, it is the town's only work of the architect Ralph Adams Cram, and is an example of Norman Gothic architecture. The chapel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
St. Luke's Methodist Church is a Late Gothic Revival church in Monticello, Iowa whose church building was completed in 1950. It is now the Monticello Heritage and Cultural Center. It is the only church in Iowa designed by nationally prominent architects Cram & Ferguson, who specialized in ecclesiastical architecture.
Gasson Hall is a building on the campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Designed by Charles Donagh Maginnis in 1908, the hall has influenced the development of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America. Gasson Hall is named after the 13th president of Boston College, Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., considered BC's "second founder."
The campus of Bard College comprises 1,000 acres (400 ha) in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus, situated on the east shore of the Hudson River, offers sweeping views of the Catskill Mountains and is within the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark. Almost all campus buildings built prior to 1950 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as contributing features to the historic district.
Ethan Anthony is an American architect, author, and academic. As president of Cram and Ferguson Architects LLC, Anthony focuses on the design of the new Traditional American church architecture. During the last three decades, Anthony has designed numerous new traditional churches and interiors and has gained a national reputation for his work in liturgical architecture. His liturgical work can now be found in fifteen states.