Harvard Law School - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

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Austin Hall A law school, particularly an institution as un- romantic as Harvard, is hardly the place one would expect to find examples of architectural genius. For the most part, the Law School's buildings will not disappoint this expectation, but Austin Hall provides the refreshing exception that proves the rule. In February of 1881, Harvard commissioned Henry Hobson Richardson to design a building for its rapidly expanding law school. Richardson was at that time already recognized as Arnericals premier architect and had earlier provided the college with Sever Hall, a building far more austere than Austin was to be but exhibiting a craftsmanship in execu- tion that was to become one of Richardson's trade- marks. But the style of Sever was, in its austerity, as atypical for Richardson as its craftsmanship was typical. Following his graduation from Harvard Col- lege, Richardson studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. During his stay in France, Richardson was exposed to the Romanesque and Neo-Romanesque architecture that would assert itself as the principal recurrent theme in his own work. Many of his buildings became as castles, massive and weighty in their expression with intricate stone detail and care- ful attention to the choice of stone itself. Austin Hall, unlike Sever, displays all those characteristics, and adds to them an elegance in ornamentation as rare then as now. Richardsonis first conceptualization for Austin Hall was far more complicated in its groupings of mass than the present structure. The front of this early plan was complicated with three turrets of varying height, and the triple arch of the main entrance is found as a triple porch with the gabled roof more characteristic of Neo-Gothic than Upper: Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail, Pittsburgh. This dark castle is perhaps Richardson's finest building. Lower: The library reading room in the nineteenth century-gas lamps and oak desks where the Ames Courtroom now stands.

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' 1' U- , es: , - H 1 1 LV W p J.kL,!5i' , KW .ii uw G ' ffab' 'f 'Ip3'F?i'ff'?g'Q-I . i- 1 , . I V 1. I-'Xa' 1 M . ' ' 4 . i - ' 54' ' mmlz' mot ,, ' '-1 r ,, ,M F., , ,- QE! , lg, ,, will .. W , ,A 7 an if :ar -if -l - .pun .V , . V-we M 4 Q 'RN iii' N-fL'f is , N y Q . WUI w ifi: l 1 :Af , H ' if lt! get ,ll Fi 'Mi - 'XE'lj 3 if it ,Q T' fl 2 TF ' f ,, -. W 5 ' itrgrrnqg in f .V A .Y , 'U if , . . ' l -' , 8 Romanesque style. This early plan remains only in the asymmetrical stair tower that is the mark of Elsinore upon Austin Hall. The design that was finally executed was far simpler in its exterior articulation than Richardson's initial plang but it retains an interior of delicate complexity. The two smaller lecture halls are placed symmetrically on either side of the main mass of the building which houses the principal lecture room and the Ames courtroom Cthen the reading room of the libraryj. At the juncture of these three lecture rooms Richardson placed tiny rooms and spaces gathered in small groups like isolated volumes on some lost bookshelf But it 1S upstairs in the library reading room that Richardson creates his finest interior space This magnificently proportioned room is marred now by row after row of singularly ugly seats, but one must see it as Richardson planned it: an enormous room but as well lit as possible in the days of the gas lamp filled with tables of energetic students Csoon more filled than Richardson could have dreamed the school he designed for 250 students was to hold 716 before Langdell was builtj spanned overhead by wooden beams whose carved beasts eternally devour one another and warmed by a grand fireplace whose stone decoration may be the finest 3 7 9 9 . . 7 7 7 e .E