Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-12-25


The Proposed Memorial TO The STU
Atfti dent martyrs Of EEavard@
The committee on the erection of a suit
able memorial building at Harvard in
honor of the students and graduates of
that venerable college, have reported.
The report embraces the following de-
seription of the plan ofthe edifce submit
ted by the architects and adopted by the
committee
@This design embraces three principal
paris
II. The Alumni Hall.
Ill. The Sanders Theatre.
&III. The Monument to the memory
of those students and graduates who have
fallen IN defence of their country during
the hate civil war. q 8.
t-These three divisions are distinct from
each other, but are so combined as to form
a single eomPosition. fZ
"The Hall includes an area of sixty
feet by a hundred and thirty-four. 1t is
thirfy-seven feet from the floor to the top
of the walls within, and eighty feet to the
ridge of the roof in the centre. The roof
isfFamed with open timber-work in what
are known as hammer beam ~trusses,
and,bears a general resemblance to the ia
nous roof of Westminster Hall and to
the roofs ofmany of Of the collegiate halls
at Oxford and Cambridge.
"There is at either end Of the Hall a gal
lery for music or for spectators, fifteen or
twenty feet deep and fifty or sixty feet
long. The walls on either side below the
pictures are richly pannelled to the height
of six feet from the floor. .
'The theatre, with its ambulatory, vomi-
toria and proscenium or stage, is not un-
like those of classic antiquity, the ar
rangcment of seats also being semi-circu-
lar, and all sloping towards the speakers,
whom all the spectators lave an equal OPP
portunity of seeing and hearing. There
is, however, a gallery about two thirds as
4 deep as the ranged f seats beneath it, sup
ported on columns. 1t is proposed to
have no seats in the pit. In this the ex-
ample of the famous Sheldonian Theatre
at Oxford has been followed, a building
which, as a successful solution of a prob
lem almost identical with this, has beer
made a particular object of study in the
preparation of this design. 1t is said tC
exhibit an audience to better advantage
than any room in England, and the mean:
by which this is effected have been care
fully preserved. This design exhibits &C
commodation for about sixteen hundred
persons seated, and half as many more
standing or sitting in the passages. Thi;
is about half as many more as the church
win contain in which the literary exercises
are now held.
"The monumental or memorial division
of this building is an Independent struc-
ture at the end of the hall. The whole
end of the building is treated as an exter-
nal mural monument, unon an unprece-
dented scale, the great height and breadth
of the wall giving, by its mere mass, q
commanding dignity, otherwise unattain.
able. To increase the monumental effect
all features of mere utility, such as doors
and widows, are avoided. Above the
level of the cornice the wall surface rises
into adeeorated tablet, about thirty feet in
width and height, projected and defined
against the background of the roof. On
this is sculptured the ancient arms of the
college with the motto Veritas,' and the
emblems of the laurel and the palm, and
below al inscription, which in these draw
ings is set down as follows: 1-a-