Memorial Hall - Gothic Tribute to the Union
Photo: Ryan Pflaum, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on Harvard Yard and Cambridge, a free self-guided tour.
No building at Harvard makes a bolder entrance than this one. Designed by William Robert Ware and Henry Van Brunt and built from 1870 to 1877, Memorial Hall honors the Harvard men who died fighting for the Union in the Civil War. In the soaring central transept, white tablets list 136 names. Harvard men also died for the Confederacy, but they are not listed here.
The building is really three spaces in one. To the west, Annenberg Hall, the dining hall for first-year students, glows with stained glass, some of it by John La Farge and the Tiffany studios. To the east is Sanders Theatre, a wooden semicircular hall of about 1,000 seats prized for its acoustics. A fire destroyed the top of the tower in 1956, and it was not rebuilt until 1996.
The triangle of land at this west end is where the John Harvard statue first stood. If the doors are open, step into the transept to read the names.
Getting here: Walk north on Quincy Street, cross Cambridge Street at the light, and head to the west end of the huge Victorian Gothic hall.
Did you know?: Sanders Theatre was completed in 1875, two years before the rest of Memorial Hall.
Photo op: From the lawn at the west end, frame the length of the hall with its patterned slate roof and tall tower.
More on Wikipedia: Memorial Hall · John La Farge
Stops on this tour
- Harvard Square - Crossroads of Cambridge
- Johnston Gate - Harvard's Front Door
- Massachusetts Hall - Harvard's Oldest Building
- John Harvard Statue - The Statue of Three Lies
- Widener Library - A Memorial in Books
- Memorial Church - A Steeple for the Fallen
- Sever Hall - Whispers in the Brick
- Harvard Art Museums - Three Museums Under Glass
- Memorial Hall - Gothic Tribute to the Union
- Cambridge Common - Where Washington Took Command
- Christ Church and Old Burying Ground - Colonial Corner