Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edward Harkness.
History
The tower was constructed between 1917 and 1921 as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her recently deceased son, Charles William Harkness, an 1883 Yale graduate. When the residential college system was inaugurated in 1933, the tower became part of Branford College.It was designed by James Gamble Rogers, a Yale College classmate of Anna Harkness's other son, Edward S. Harkness. James S. Hedden was the contractor's supervisor for the project and took many photographs of the construction's progress.
The tower underwent renovations from September 2009 to May 2010 to repair its masonry and ornament.
Influence
Harkness Tower was the first couronne tower in English Perpendicular Gothic style built in the modern era. James Gamble Rogers, who designed the tower and many of Yale's Collegiate Gothic structures, said it was inspired by the 15th-century Boston Stump, the tower of the parish church of St Botolph in Boston, Lincolnshire and tallest parish church tower in England. Rogers also based some details on the 16th-century tower of St Giles' Church in Wrexham, Wales, where Elihu Yale is buried. In turn, Harkness Tower has been identified as the direct influence for the tower of the Cathedral of Christ the King in Hamilton, Ontario.The tower's image was adopted by the Yale Herald, a weekly student newspaper, for its masthead.
Design
Harkness Tower is 216 feet tall, one foot for each year since Yale's founding at the time it was built. From a square base, it rises in stages to a double stone crown on an octagonal base, and at the top are stone finials. From the street level to the roof, there are 284 steps.Midway to the top, four openwork copper clockfaces tell the hours. The bells of the carillon are behind the clockfaces, fixed to a frame made of steel I-beams. The playing console of the carillon is at the level of the balconies immediately below the clock faces. Lower levels of the tower house a water tank, two practice carillons, the old chimes playing console, office space for the Yale University Guild of Carillonneurs, and a memorial chapel.
Materials
The tower was built of separate stone blocks, and reinforced with steel in 1966 to handle the new bells in the carillon.Yale tour guides frequently mention the legend that the tower was the world's tallest free-standing stone structure until it required reinforcement after an eccentric architect or philanthropist ordered acid to be poured down the walls to make it look older. In reality, the Washington Monument was the country's tallest such structure long before Harkness Tower was built.