The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

East and West Pembroke Halls

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East and West Pembroke Halls (front facade, view from the south), Bryn Mawr College

Institution Name: Bryn Mawr College
Original/Historic Place Name: East and West Pembroke Halls
Location on Campus: 218-220 N. Merion Ave.
Date(s) of Construction:

1892-1894

original construction Cope & Stewardson

Designer: Cope & Stewardson
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: Gothic revival, Other (Glossary)
Significance:
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: schist

Walls: schist, limestone trim

Roof: slate

Function:

ca. 1894	dining hall
ca. 1894	residence hall
present	residence hall

Narrative:
East and West Pembroke Halls are in overall very good condition, and retain the vast majority of their character-defining features. Like the other campus dormitories, they have been subject to repeated campaigns of finishes renewal and minor alterations associated with systems upgrades. The original windows were replaced in the 1980s.

The Pembroke Halls are significant as one of the most major Academic Gothic works of the firm of Cope & Stewardson, and as part of the ensemble that marks the perimeter of the academic campus as it existed at the end of the nineteenth century. The Pembrokes are also significant as manifestations of the planning initiatives of president M. Carey Thomas, and mark a kind of opening salvo for the image of a "female Oxbridge" she was to create at Bryn Mawr.

References:

Andropogon Associates, and Emily Cooperman. Bryn Mawr College Campus Heritage Initiative, Funded by the J. Paul Getty Initiative. Report. Philadelphia, PA: Andropogon Associates, Ltd., 2004.

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Webb, Leslie A. Bryn Mawr College Historic District. National Register of Historic Places designation report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service, 1984.