Gerberding Hall (formerly known as the Administration Building) is a building on the campus of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

, United States.

History

The Administration Building was built in 1949 to house the University of Washington's administrative offices and was the first major structure erected on campus following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Constructed from a design by Victor N. Jones and John T. Jacobsen, it was built at a cost of $1,561,924. In 1995, the Administration Building was renamed Gerberding Hall in honor of former university president William Gerberding. As of 2017, the building houses the office of the university's president.

Design

Located abutting

Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːətʲ) is one of the oldest and largest squares in Moscow, the capital of Russia. Owing to its historical significance and the adjacent historical build ...

, and constructed entirely of cast stone, Gerberding Hall is built in the

collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

style with its characteristic elements including gargoyles, pointed arches, towers, and gabled roofs. Along its parapets are 25 sculptures by Dudley Pratt representing different academic disciplines; for example, a figure of the god

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 time ...

on the building's east gable is intended to represent

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynami ...

and

fisheries science Fisheries science is the academic discipline of managing and understanding fisheries. It is a multidisciplinary science, which draws on the disciplines of limnology, oceanography, freshwater biology, marine biology, meteorology, conservation, ...

. The structure is dominated by a central, square tower. On the face of each of its sides is engraved the keys of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

. The tower itself, originally intended to serve as a belfry, did not fulfill that purpose until 2008. In that year, a set of eight bells – the Gordon Stuart Peek Foundation Memorial Bells – was installed which were designed to be operated by

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in which the ringers commit to memor ...

. A shield bearing the visage of Herbert Condon in relief and the words "Friend of Youth" sits over the exterior doorway to the tower. Other sculptures on the building's exterior include a Siberian Husky and a man wearing academic gowns holding an adding machine and a money bag. The interior consists of two, three-story wings set at different ground levels, hinged at the central tower.

Gallery

File:UDub Gerberding Hall tower.jpg, Gerberding Hall from the southeast in 2010 File:Gerberding Hall Roof Sculptures.jpg, Closeup of rooftop sculptures

Notes

References

{{Authority Control University of Washington campus Collegiate Gothic architecture Buildings and structures in Seattle 1949 establishments in Washington (state)