Battle Hall - The Building That Set the Style

Photo: Katiepiercemeyer, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on UT Austin Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.

If the campus has a look - honey-colored limestone, red tile roofs, deep shady eaves - this is where it began. New York architect Cass Gilbert, who also designed the Woolworth Building and the U.S. Supreme Court, drew Battle Hall in 1911 in a Spanish Mediterranean style.

It opened as the university library and served as the main library until the new Main Building took over in 1937. Gilbert's building made such an impression that Paul Cret used it as a model when he drew up his 1933 master plan, and new buildings on campus are still expected to echo it. Battle Hall is named for William James Battle, a classics professor and onetime acting president of the university.

Today it houses the Architecture and Planning Library, which makes sense: future architects study in the building that taught the campus how to look. Notice the decorated underside of the deep eaves and the arched windows, and how the Tower behind you borrows the same palette.

Getting here: From the Main Mall, walk west and down onto the West Mall. Battle Hall is the red-roofed building on your left.

Did you know?: Battle Hall is one of only four University of Texas at Austin buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, added in 1970.

Photo op: Stand on the West Mall and frame Battle Hall's red tile roof and eaves with the Tower rising just behind it.

More on Wikipedia: Battle Hall · Cass Gilbert

Battle Hall - The Building That Set the Style

Stops on this tour