The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

Marjorie Walter Goodhart Hall

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Marjorie Walter Goodhart Theater (three-quarter view, from the southeast), Bryn Mawr College

Institution Name: Bryn Mawr College
Original/Historic Place Name: Marjorie Walter Goodhart Hall
Location on Campus: 150 N. Merion Ave.
Date(s) of Construction:

1926-1928

original construction Mellor, Meigs & Howe

Designer: Mellor, Meigs & Howe
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: Gothic revival (Glossary)
Significance:
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: schist

Walls: schist, limestone

Roof: slate

Function:

ca. 1928- present	faculty offices
ca. 1928- present	auditorium (theater)
ca. 1928- present	classrooms (music department)

Narrative:
Marjorie Walter Goodhart Hall is in overall excellent condition, having had several relatively recent restoration campaigns. It retains virtually all of its significant historic fabric.

Goodhart Hall is significant as a major public work of the firm of Mellor & Meigs, and is significant not only for their trademark picturesque version of Academic Gothic, but for the combination of historicist detail and the overt expression of modern materials, specifically, the reinforced concrete arches in the main theater space. The metal work of Samuel Yellin on Goodhart effectively illustrates the high aesthetic and cultural value of his oeuvre.

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.