Liberty Bell Pavilion
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The Liberty Bell Pavilion (demolished) was a building within
Independence National Historical Park Independence National Historical Park is a federally protected historic district in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that preserves several sites associated with the American Revolution and the nation's founding history. Administered by the National ...
(INHP) in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, that housed the
Liberty Bell The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American Revolution, American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now know ...
from January 1, 1976 to October 9, 2003. Designed by the architectural firm Giurgola Associates to be the Bell's permanent home, it stood for only 30 years. The Bell is currently housed in a much larger building, the
Liberty Bell Center The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Ha ...
, completed in 2003. The Pavilion was demolished in 2006.


Moving the Bell

The
Liberty Bell The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American Revolution, American independence located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of Pennsylvania State House, now know ...
, cast in 1752 and bearing the words "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof", was commissioned by the
Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from ...
to be the bell for the Pennsylvania Statehouse, now called
Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence, Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were debated and adopted by the Founding Fathers of ...
. Later, this was the building in which the
Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...
(1776) and
United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...
(1787) were debated and signed. The Bell originally hung in the lowest chamber of the building's wooden spire, but it was lowered into the brick tower when the rotting spire was deemed unsafe and removed. In 1852, the cracked Bell was taken down and exhibited on the Hall's ground floor. In 1969, Independence National Historical Park expressed concern that crowds of visitors to the upcoming 1976 United States Bicentennial could overwhelm (and possibly cause structural damage to) Independence Hall. INHP's proposed solution was to separate the Bell from the Hall, creating two visitor attractions. INHP's plan, announced in 1972, involved moving the Bell to a visitor center to be built at 3rd & Chestnut Streets (2-1/2 blocks east of Independence Hall). The Bell was to be installed on the visitor center's second story – separated, literally and visually, from the building for which it had been created and in which it had been housed for 220 years. Following severe criticism from the public and members of Congress, this plan was abandoned. INHP's next plan was to build a Bell pavilion at the north end of Independence Mall, on the block bounded by Race, Arch, 5th and 6th Streets (now the site of the
National Constitution Center The National Constitution Center is a non-profit institution that is devoted to the study of the Constitution of the United States. Located at the Independence Mall (Philadelphia), Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the center is a ...
). This would have placed the Bell about a quarter-mile from Independence Hall. INHP's second plan was also soundly rejected. Philadelphia's mayor,
Frank Rizzo Francis Lazarro Rizzo (October 23, 1920 – July 16, 1991) was an American police officer and politician. He served as commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) from 1967 to 1971 and mayor of Philadelphia from 1972 to 1980. He wa ...
, pressed for the pavilion to be built on the block directly north of Independence Hall, bounded by Market, Chestnut, 5th and 6th Streets. The designer chosen was
Romaldo Giurgola Romaldo 'Aldo' Giurgola (2 September 1920 – 16 May 2016) was an Italian-Australian academic, architect, professor, and author. Giurgola was born in Rome, Italy in 1920. After service in the Italian armed forces during World War II, he was ...
, a Philadelphia architect known for his
Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
buildings. Giurgola began design work in early 1974; ground was broken in early-1975 and construction was completed by the end of the year. The move of the Bell some 600 feet north to its new home became part of Philadelphia's 1975
New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinkin ...
celebration. The Pavilion opened to visitors at 12:01 am on January 1, 1976.


Building

The steel-and-glass, hourglass-shaped building gathered visitors in a vestibule, and funnelled them down a hallway to the Bell Chamber. There, visitors encountered the Bell before a wall of glass, with Independence Hall as its backdrop. An INHP ranger or guide made a 5- to 10-minute presentation about its history. A longitudinal line of skylights illuminated the interior, relieving the visual weight of the ceiling and reinforcing the central axis of Independence Mall. Glass walls on the north and south facades and canted ones on the sides made the Bell visible from multiple angles, especially at night when it was lit by spotlights. Even when the Pavilion was closed, the Bell was visually accessible to everyone. The building drew near-unanimous praise from architects, but some members of the public found the architecture cold and insufficiently-dignified, complaining that it looked like "a drive-in bank or subway station." The modest-sized Pavilion, with a capacity of about 100 people, also did not function well with large crowds. Even with the ranger presentations eliminated, lines of visitors were long on peak-visitation days and the wait could be hours. When INHP began a redesign of Independence Hall in the 1990s, a much bigger Liberty Bell building was part of the plan. The Liberty Bell Center, built to the west of the Pavilion, opened on October 9, 2003. Initially, the vacant Pavilion was repurposed as a security building in which visitors headed to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center were screened. Attempts were made by INHP to sell the Pavilion for the $800,000 cost of its disassembly and removal, but no buyer was found. Instead, some of the building materials were salvaged, and the rest of the Pavilion was demolished in 2006.Joseph A. Slobodzian
"Without its bell, pavilion awaits a wrecking crew,"
''Philadelphia Inquirer'', March 21, 2006.
File:Liberty Bell Pavilion Exterior HABS 213789pv.jpg, Market Street facade. File:Liberty Bell Pavilion Interior HABS 213798pv.jpg, Vestibule, looking south. File:Liberty Bell Pavilion Bell Chamber HABS 213801pv.jpg, Bell Chamber. File:Liberty Bell Center and Pavilion HABS 213785pv.jpg, Not-yet-opened Liberty Bell Center (left) and Pavilion (right of center), looking north from Independence Hall. Summer 2003.


References

* Constance M. Greiff, ''Independence: The Creation of A National Park'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987). * Bradley David Roeder, ''Creation and Destruction: Mitchell/Giurgola's Liberty Bell Pavilion'' (Masters thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2002). {{coord, 39.9502, -75.1497, type:landmark_region:US-PA, display=title 1976 establishments in Pennsylvania 2006 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Buildings and structures completed in 1975 Buildings and structures in Philadelphia Buildings and structures demolished in 2006 Buildings and structures in Independence National Historical Park Demolished buildings and structures in Philadelphia Liberty Bell Modernist architecture in Pennsylvania