A
significant change in policy resulted from
President Woolley’s emphasis on symbolism
and cultural narrative in the campus’s
expansion. She desired a formalism that was
needed to achieve the status of a men’s
college. In 1925 Woolley and the Board of Trustees
retained Ralph Adams Cram and Arthur Shurtleff
from Boston, who took over as master planners
for the landscape from a previous Olmsted design.
Plans were drawn up for the future development
and blueprints were carefully scrutinized by
President Woolley and the Board of Trustees.
Incidentally, one of the last prominent Gothic
architects of collegiate and ecclesiastical
buildings in America working in the 1910s and
1920s was Ralph Adams Cram, also known as “Mr.
Collegiate Gothic” by his associates.
Mr. Shurtleff, who believed himself to be unique,
changed his name to Shurcliff, an appellation
attached to no one else. (12)
Included
in Shurtleff’s plans was a
brochure entitled “Program for Campus
Development at Mount Holyoke College” which
included a detailed description of the proposals
for new buildings and landscaping that would
meet the needs of the College. Collegiate Gothic
design was a high priority of Shurtleff’’s
and would have a profound effect on the planning
and positioning of new buildings. His designs
included academic quadrangular sites in which
buildings would be built around rectangular
greens plots of land, replicating men’s
colleges with their formal organization and
density. In addition to the square corners,
the new buildings were to be colossal in size
and the older ones redressed to
join the grandeur collegiate Gothic designs.
Lastly, there would
be enclosed courtyards similar to “the
older English colleges” (13).
For
More Information on the Submitted Plans,
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Home
Page
The
History of Gothic Architecture:
Cambridge
and Princeton
About Ralph Cram
A Time of Transition:
Bryn
Mawr
Mary E.
Woolley
Frederick
Olmsted Jr.
The Envisioned Plan:
Program for
Campus Development
Designs
for the Library and Chapel
Shurtleff
and Cram Present Their Ideas
The Implemented Plan:
Meetings
and Discussions
Collens'
Library Designs(Exterior)
Collens'
Library Designs (Interior)
Bertha
Blakely's Influence
Abbey Memorial
Chapel
Charles Collens
Dedication Speech and closing comments
Trivial Pursuit
Question
References
