Yale architecture: from 'Potty Court' to prostitutes

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 was not exactly the Middle Ages, and 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 imitate 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 plantation-style brick exterior and white columns, it looks more recent than Yale's dark Gothic structures. Rather than paying homage to earlier 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 intended to inspire fear and awe in medieval cathedral-goers, it has a 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 scope. 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 reading—but the book resting in his hands 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 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 authentic, Rogers ordered such niches to be carved and left empty to deceive us into thinking that time had withered away the statues which might have been there.

Although Rogers' original design intended Sterling to stand taller, the project ran low on funds. As it is, the library contains 14 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 reportedly argued that the windows were going to be broken anyway. 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 aged, the corners of every shingle 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, built with solid stone instead. The 216-foot Harkness Tower was, at one point in time, the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world.

The top level of gargoyles in Harkness depicts the four aspects of a Yale student: pen-wielding writer, proficient athlete, tea-drinking socialite, and diligent scholar. Though Yalies create their identities without regard for musty traditions, it's always nice to indulge in mythic college lore.

Photo by Tyler Mertes.

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