Sever Hall - Whispers in the Brick

Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)

A stop on Harvard Yard and Cambridge, a free self-guided tour.

This richly textured brick hall, finished in 1880, is the work of Henry Hobson Richardson, whose massive arches and earthy materials gave the world the style called Richardsonian Romanesque. Anne Sever paid for it in memory of her husband, James Warren Sever.

Richardson had to fit into a Yard of plain Georgian brick, so he used red brick too, then made it sing. Look closely and you will find about 60 varieties of molded brick, along with carved brick panels and ornament. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1970, and architects still study it as a lesson in building something new beside something old.

Now try the building's party trick. Under the deep entrance arch facing the lawn, have a friend stand at one side while you whisper into the brick on the other. The curve carries the sound across the archway so clearly that it seems to come from right beside them.

Sever is still a busy classroom building, so keep voices low during the term.

Getting here: Walk east along the lawn to the red brick building with the deep round arch at the end of Tercentenary Theatre.

Did you know?: Sever Hall contains about 1.3 million bricks, roughly 100,000 of them on its outer walls.

Photo op: Step back onto the lawn and frame the full entrance arch and the carved brick panels around it.

More on Wikipedia: Sever Hall · Henry Hobson Richardson · Richardsonian Romanesque

Sever Hall - Whispers in the Brick

Stops on this tour