Carpenter Hall History

Completed in 1915, Carpenter Hall was built as a twin to Wilson Hall (located on the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall) in order to save money in design costs. Unlike its twin, Carpenter didn’t have its grand entry to the second floor completed. Due to the steep slope to the west and reverse orientation to campus it was impractical to follow through with the plan. Carpenter Hall was one of seven buildings designed by the first University architect and first chair of the Architecture Department, Rudolph Weaver. Due to wartime building restrictions, neither was completed until 1926. First known as Mechanic Arts building, it was renamed in 1949 after H.V. Carpenter, the first design of the College of Mechanic Arts and Engineering.

It currently is home to one of the best-equipped schools of architecture in the country. Upper level architecture students have their own workstations supplied with specialized software, and vital resources are never far away with a complete architecture library located on the ground floor.

Carpenter Hall has a fine classical structure of red brick which bolsters the southwest corner of the campus core on Spokane Street. Using the first floor as a strong base and uniting the three upper floors by means of giant pilasters between the windows, Weaver has produced a bold effect. The strong terra cotta cornice caps the facade confidently. The use of ornament elsewhere is restrained. A grand entry at second floor level, as at Wilson Hall, was planned but never executed. Presumably, the steep slope to the west and its orientation away from the rest of the campus made it impractical. In this building, the Georgian and Classic Revival vocabularies have been skillfully adapted to the needs of a large university building.

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