Eli architecture balances tradition with humor

Dark, looming towers, walls of ivy-covered stone, grotesque carvings leering from the eaves: most Yale buildings look like something out of the 11th century. Yale was founded in 1701, which is not exactly the Middle Ages, but the neo-Gothic architecture that dominates Yale's campus is actually only about 60 years old.

In preparation for the dawn of the "machine age," prominent architects of the 1930s designed houses made either entirely of glass or buildings without any glass at all. Yale, however, hired architect James Gamble Rogers to give the school an older feel. The University sought to resemble Britain's venerable Oxford and Cambridge Universities, established bastions of academic prestige.

Built in 1750, Connecticut Hall on Old Campus is the oldest building at Yale. With its crisp, plantation-style red-brick exterior and white columns, it looks more recent than Yale's dark Gothic structures. Rather than paying homage to earlier architectural models, Connecticut Hall was built true to the Georgian style of the period. Although the Gothic style which dominates the rest of the campus was originally intended to inspire fear and awe in medieval cathedral-goers, it has a decidedly 20th-century twist at Yale.

For example, a closer look at the friezes of Sterling Memorial Library reveals that the carvings are far from traditional. In one first-floor corridor, a series of carvings depicts one student sleeping at a desk while another lounges with a cigarette, a mug of beer, and a poster of a naked woman above him. One student is actually reading—but the book taunts, "U.R.A. Joke."

More seamy tales abound on the walls of the Law School, where you can find a professor sleeping through class, a prostitute being arrested, and a drunk talking his way out of a conviction. In Trumbull's "Potty Court," you will discover a prominent gargoyle who appears to be relieving himself. Many carved-out niches in the stonework lack any statue at all. In an effort to make his ancient-looking buildings seem more authentic, Rogers ordered such niches to be carved and left empty in order to deceive us into thinking that time had withered away the statues which might have once been there.

Although Rogers's original design intended Sterling to stand taller, the project ran low on funds. As it is, the library contains fourteen stories of book stacks. However, rumors circulate about what exactly rests on the roof of the building. A popular explanation is that the construction crew built a small castle out of excess building materials to hide machinery for the monstrous air-conditioning system. But some boastful climbers claim to have seen an entire miniature city—complete with its own stone golf course.

Sterling isn't the only building at Yale with a deceptive appearance. In Saybrook and Branford Colleges, Rogers required that at least one pane on every window be broken and then soldered back together. Rogers is reported to have argued that the windows were going to be broken anyway, so his crew might as well get it out of the way. Likewise, to attain a weather-beaten look, the new roof tiles were buried in three different types of soil before they were installed. When they still didn't look authentically aged, the corners were meticulously chipped off.

Rogers did go to great lengths to make Yale feel authentically antique. Unlike most neo-Gothic architecture, which is built with a steel frame and merely reinforced with a stone exterior, Yale's Gothic buildings are, for the most part, solid stone. The 216-foot Harkness Tower was, for a time, the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world.

The top level of gargoyles in Harkness depicts the four sides of a Yale student: pen-wielding writer, proficient athlete, tea-drinking socialite, and diligent scholar. Yet Yalies have always created their own identities without regard for musty old traditions.

Photo by Tyler Mertes.

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