Gasson Hall is an iconic building on the campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. It is named after the 13th president of Boston College, Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, considered BC's "second founder." Designed by Charles Donagh Maginnis in 1908, Gasson Hall is a seminal example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America. Publication of its design in 1909--and praise from influential American Gothicist Ralph Adams Cram--helped establish Collegiate Gothic as the prevailing architectural style on American university campuses for much of the 20th Century. Gasson Hall is credited for the typology of dominant Gothic towers in subsequent campus designs, including those at Princeton (Cleveland Tower, 1913-1917), Yale (Harkness Tower, 1917-1921), and Duke (Chapel Tower, 1930-1935). The Savior Not Made By Hands (1410s, by Andrei Rublev) An icon (from Greek εικων, eikon, image) is an artistic visual representation or symbol of anything considered holy and divine, such as God, saints or deities. ... Boston College is a private university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. ... Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts is a suburb of Boston. ... Laminitis, also known as founder, is inflammation of the sensitive lamina of the foot in a horse, the complications of which often result in the horse having to be euthanized. ... Considered the father of American Gothic architecture, Charles Donagh Maginnis was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland on January 7, 1867. ... 1908 is a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Victoria Tower at the Palace of Westminster, London: Gothic details provided by A.W.N. Pugin The Gothic revival was a European architectural movement with origins in mid-18th century England. ... 1909 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Ralph Adams Cram, (December 16, 1863 - September 22, 1942), was an American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastic buildings of a gothic style. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... The word typology literally means the study of types. ... Princeton is the name of several places in the United States of America: Princeton, Florida Princeton, Illinois Princeton, Indiana Princeton, Iowa Princeton, Kansas Princeton, Kentucky Princeton, Louisiana Princeton, Maine Princeton, Massachusetts Princeton, Minnesota Princeton, Missouri Princeton, New Jersey Princeton, North Carolina Princeton, South Carolina Princeton, Texas Princeton, West Virginia Princeton... This article is about the institution of higher learning in the United States. ... Harkness Tower is a prominent Gothic structure at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, built from 1917 to 1921. ... The term duke is a title of nobility which refers to the sovereign male ruler of a Continental European duchy, to a nobleman of the highest grade of the British peerage, or to the highest rank of nobility in various other European countries, including Spain and France (in Italy, principe...

In 1907, newly-installed Boston College President Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, determined that BC's cramped, urban campus in Boston's South End was inadequate and unsuited for significant expansion. Inspired by John Winthrop's early vision of Boston as a "city upon a hill," he re-imagined Boston College as world-renowned university and a beacon of Jesuit education. Less than a year after taking office, he purchased the Lawrence farm on Chestnut Hill, six miles west of the city. He organized an international competition for the design of the campus master plan and set about raising funds for the construction of the "new" university. Two years later, the competition winner was announced and construction began. From a field of entries by some of the most distinguished architects of the day, Charles Donagh Maginnis' proposal for an "Oxford in America" was selected. Combining the Gothic style of his medieval precedent with the axes, balance and symmetry of the Beaux-Arts style, he proposed a vast complex of academic buildings set in a cruciform plan. The design suggested an enormous outdoor cathedral, with the long entry drive at the "nave," the main quadrangle at the "apse" and secondary quadrangles at the "transepts." At the "crossing," Maginnis placed the university's main building which he called "Recitation Hall." Using stone quaried on the site, the building was constructed at the highest point on Chestnut Hill, commanding a view of the surrounding landscape and the city to the east. Dominated by a soaring 200-foot bell tower, Recitation Hall was known simply as the "Tower Building" when it finally opened in 1913. This article is about the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood. ... John Winthrop was the name of several prominent figures in colonial New England. ... This page discusses Beacons, fires designed to attract attention. ... The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic religious order. ... Campus is Latin for field or open space. English gets the words camp and campus from this origin. ... Besides its original meaning, of or relating to the Goths, a Germanic tribe and thus the Gothic language and the Gothic alphabet, and aside from its Early Modern connotations of rough, barbarous, the word Gothic has been used since the 18th century to refer to distinctly different things. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... ... Cruciform means having the shape of a cross. ... A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy (such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican churches), which serves as the central church of a bishopric. ... Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. ... In architecture a quadrangle, or more colloquially, quad, is a space on a college or university campus usually but not always enclosed on four sides by buildings. ... APSE standing for Ada Programming Support Environment is a program or set of programs to support software development in the Ada programming language. ... Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram. ... 1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

Maginnis' design broke from the traditional Oxbridge models that had inspired it--and that had till then characterized Gothic architecture on American campuses. In its unprecedented scale, Gasson Tower was conceived not as the bellfry of a singular building, but as the crowning campanile of Maginnis' new "city upon a hill." Oxbridge is a portmanteau name for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest in the United Kingdom. ... St. ...

Related topics

• Collegiate Gothic
• Gothic architecture