Sayles Memorial Hall is a

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...

hall on the central campus of Brown University in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. The granite structure was designed by Alpheus C. Morse and constructed from 1879 to 1881.

History

Sayles Hall was built in memoriam of William Clark Sayles, who entered Brown in 1874 and died in 1876. In 1878 Sayles' father gifted the school $50,000 for the construction of a building in his sons' honor “which shall be exclusively and forever devoted to lectures and recitations, and to meetings on academic occasions.”

Structure

The building is constructed of rock-faced Westerly granite with

Longmeadow Longmeadow is a town in Hampden County, Massachusetts, in the United States. The population was 15,853 at the 2020 census. History Longmeadow was first settled in 1644, and officially incorporated October 17, 1783. The town was originally farm ...

brownstone Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material. Type ...

trim. The structure follows a T-shaped plan. The front section measures 35 by 75 feet and is topped by a

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus ...

; the rear of the building has a

gabled roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof ca ...

. The main auditorium of the building is characterized by pine roof trusses.

Organ

The building is home to a 1903 Hutchings-Votey organ gifted to the university by Lucian Sharpe. Today, the organ is the largest remaining Hutchings-Votey organ of its type. The organ is used for an annual Halloween concert which begins at midnight.

Portraits

The main auditorium of the structure is adorned with 35 historical and contemporary portraits of leaders and benefactors of the university. In 1997, a portrait of

Sarah Elizabeth Doyle Sarah Elizabeth Doyle (March 22, 1830 – December 21, 1922) was an American educator and educational reformer, noted for her roles in founding the Rhode Island School of Design and establishing women's education at Brown University. Early life S ...

was stolen from the building. In 2016, the university installed a portrait of President Emerita

Ruth Simmons Ruth Simmons (born Ruth Jean Stubblefield, July 3, 1945) is an American professor and academic administrator. She is president of Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university. Simmons previously served as the 18th president of ...

, making her the first and only Black woman represented in the collection.

Gallery

File:Sayles Hall, April 2021.jpg File:Sayles Hall interior, Brown University.jpg

References

{{Brown University Brown University buildings Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Rhode Island Buildings and structures completed in 1881