Gothic Makeover
In 1897 the College of New Jersey officially became Princeton University, and its
assortment of styles, many supposed, had led to a degree of visual confusion unbefitting
the institution’s new name. The unifying potential of the Gothic style was suggested
to address the problem. Gothic had recently entranced Princeton President Woodrow Wilson
and trustees on a visit to Oxford and Cambridge, and had already made an appearance in
American schools such as Bryn Mawr. Thus began “Princeton’s long, 50 year love affair
with Collegiate Gothic.” 12
The style was chosen for the aura of Christian heritage and European learning that it
was thought to convey. President Woodrow Wilson would say in celebration of Princeton’s
new look, “We have added a thousand years to the history of Princeton… and as the
imagination of classes yet to be graduated from Princeton [is] affected by the suggestions
of that architecture, we shall find the past of this country married with the past of the
world.” 13 Wilson’s rival, Professor Andrew West, could also wax quite eloquent on the subject:
“Why do students naturally love such buildings? I
think it is because, with the scenic setting, they look inviting, domestic,
poetic, and seem in some way ancestral to universities. Quadrangles shadowing
sunny lawns, towers and gateways opening into quiet retreats, ivy-grown walls
looking on sheltered gardens, vistas through avenues of arching elms, walks
that wind amid the groves of Academe – these are the places where the affections
linger and where memories cling like the ivies themselves, and these are the
answers in architecture and scenic setting to the immemorial longings of
academic generations back to the time when universities first began
to build their homes.”
14 The American architect Ralph Adams Cram, the “high priest” of Gothic, was chosen as supervising architect for Princeton’s makeover, a position he occupied for more than
twenty years (1907-1929). The 1920 fire that destroyed Marquand Chapel proved the
perfect chance for Cram to display his skill at its peak – church architecture. 15 Gothic
was for Cram not imitation of the past. His high principles denigrated the
regurgitations of old forms as “archaeology, not architecture.” 16 Instead his
goal was to make a “logical continuation of the great Christian culture of the
past, but also a vital contribution to modern life.” 17 As wrote a reviewer in
defense of one of Cram’s many books, “…it [the Gothic style] is to him not
past, but eternal.” 18
