Branford College is one of the 14 residential colleges at Yale University .
25-480: Branford College was founded in 1933 by partitioning the Memorial Quadrangle (built in 1917-21) into two parts: Saybrook and Branford with Branford being the largest part. In the start of the academic year in 1933, Branford College opened its doors. Clarence Whittlesey Mendell, Dean of Yale College , had been named Master in 1931 and he held the post until 1943. What impressed quite a few visitors to Branford
50-437: A theatre , opera house , concert hall , showroom , cinema , etc.) adjacent to the auditorium . It may be a repose area for spectators, especially used before performance and during intermissions , but also as a place of celebrations or festivities after performance. In other buildings, such as office buildings or condominiums, lobbies can function as gathering spaces between the entrance and elevators to other floors. Since
75-487: A Y-shape in many of the windows. The student-led committee, Branford College Council (BCC), coordinates events around Branford College. The basement of the College houses the College's student-run buttery , a computer cluster, a small weight room, two squash courts, a dance studio, a basketball court, a digital media center, a game room, a student kitchen, a pottery studio, a printing press, and laundry facilities. The basement
100-549: A residential undergraduate campus at the University of Chicago made heavy reference to the Memorial Quadrangle. 41°18′36″N 72°55′47″W / 41.3100°N 72.9297°W / 41.3100; -72.9297 Entryway A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer , reception area or entrance hall , it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in
125-418: Is used for seminars and meetings of small student organizations. The Branford College Library is located in the middle courtyard of Branford College, named Calliope Court. The student rooms and common areas are decorated with stained glass by G. Owen Bonawit . Branford's architect, James Gamble Rogers , required that at least one pane on every window be broken and then soldered back together, resulting in
150-594: The Calliopean Society . Walls around these southward courtyards are several stories shorter than those on the north, allowing light to fill all of the quadrangle's open spaces more evenly. The building's masonry exterior is richly ornamented, and much of the decoration commemorates distinguished university graduates. The gate beneath Harkness Tower, crafted by Samuel Yellin , is the most ornate of his many works at Yale. G. Owen Bonawit designed unique stained glass windowpanes for each student room. From 1921 to 1929
175-614: The Hall of Graduate Studies . Many of the artisans who worked on the Memorial Quadrangle with Rogers, including G. Owen Bonawit and blacksmith Samuel Yellin , were commissioned again for these later buildings. The quadrangle was an antecedent of the Collegiate Gothic style used throughout the United States, and of large residential campuses of the 20th century, including Harvard College and Rice University. In particular, plans for creating
200-512: The Fellows of the College meet. This room is called the Trumbull Room, in memory of the first art gallery at Yale, which was built to house the paintings of John Trumbull. The Branford Dining Hall is located above the common room parallel to York Street. The large, vaulted main dining hall contains a 15th-century Burgundian fireplace. A smaller, cozier room traditionally called The Pit, also known as
225-531: The Small Dining Hall, is frequently reserved by student groups for dinner meetings. The other "Common Room" is the Mendell Room, named for Branford's first master, Clarence Whittlesey Mendell. Confusingly, this room also had several other names. It was originally dubbed the "Cabinet Commons" when it was constructed. It quickly came to be known as the "Ship Room" after the carving over the mantle, which depicts
250-400: The U.S. and responded that he would pick Harkness Tower so he would not have to look at it. Since Branford's courtyards have many squirrels, the college adopted the squirrel as its mascot. The college has a longstanding rivalry with neighboring Jonathan Edwards College as well as a less formal one with Saybrook, both of which frequently attempt to steal Branford's college flag. Branford is
275-463: The building housed Yale College seniors. In 1928, a donation from Edward Harkness began Yale's residential college system, the buildings of which were also planned and designed by Rogers. Rogers split the Quadrangle into two residential colleges—Saybrook and Branford, so named for the courtyards they contain—and added mid-sized elements such as masters' houses, fellow's quarters, and dining halls. During
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#1732852345418300-477: The conversion, the "Gold Coast" of student rooms in the middle of the Quadrangle was hollowed out to make way for the Saybrook College dining hall. The colleges opened on September 25, 1933. The Memorial Quadrangle became the template for Yale's residential college system . First announced as a "Quadrangle Plan," the colleges were built around the same courtyard and dining hall design pioneered. In addition to
325-581: The largest, Branford Court—commemorate Connecticut towns significant to the school's founding, and a fourth, Wrexham Court, commemorating the city of Wrexham in Wales , the resting place of Elihu Yale . The other three, on the building's southern side and now part of Branford College, are named for early debating societies in Yale College: Brothers in Unity Court, Linonia Court, and Calliope Court after
350-419: The mid-1980s, there has been a growing trend to think of lobbies as more than just ways to get from the door to the elevator but instead as social spaces and places of commerce. Some research has even been done to develop scales to measure lobby atmosphere to improve hotel lobby design. Many office buildings , condominiums , hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create
375-531: The most visible symbol of Yale on the New Haven skyscape, is placed on an axis unifying it with Yale's Old Campus . The shorter Wrexham Tower is modeled on the tower of St Giles' Church in Wrexham , Wales , where Elihu Yale is buried. The building is divided into seven courtyards, which Rogers framed with materials and decorative elements giving each distinct character. Three—Killingworth Court, Saybrook Court, and
400-419: The nearby town of Branford , Connecticut , where Yale was briefly located. The base of Harkness Tower , one of the university's most prominent structures and one of the tallest free-standing stone structures in the world, forms one corner of Branford's main courtyard. The tower contains a 54-bell carillon . Frank Lloyd Wright is said to have been asked where he would choose to be if he could be anywhere in
425-559: The phantom "Great Ship" lost at sea off the coast of New Haven. During the early days of the College, it was used as a "Music Room," and a record player was installed for the use of College students. It was only after the death of Master Mendell that the room was renamed in his honor. The room, which is located between the Branford and Brothers in Unity Courts (joined by the Jared Eliot gateway)
450-502: The primary benefactor of Yale's residential college system fifteen years later, a scheme which required a partial reconfiguration of the Memorial Quadrangle to create its two residential colleges. Harkness Tower , a large masonry tower on the building's west side, was named in memory of Charles Harkness, a memorial to whom is found in the tower's chapel. Construction began in 1917, the bicentennial of Yale's first building in New Haven, and
475-460: The sister college of Quincy House at Harvard , Pembroke College at Oxford and Christ's College at Cambridge. It is tradition for Branfordians to host members of Quincy House when Yale hosts Harvard during The Game . There are two "common rooms" in addition to the primary common room (located underneath the Dining Hall). Located between Linonia and Branford Courts is the Fellows' Lounge, where
500-417: The title of "Master" was changed to "Head of College" Memorial Quadrangle The Memorial Quadrangle is a residential quadrangle at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut . Commissioned in 1917 to supply much-needed student housing for Yale College , it was Yale's first Collegiate Gothic building and its first project by James Gamble Rogers , who later designed ten other major buildings for
525-455: The two colleges that were created within the Memorial Quadrangle, six others—Jonathan Edwards, Davenport, Calhoun, Trumbull, and Berkeley—followed the same Collegiate Gothic style. Because of his initial work on the Memorial Quadrangle, Rogers became the de facto architect of Yale's central campus through the 1920s and 1930s: eight of the ten early residential colleges were his design, as were Sterling Memorial Library , Sterling Law Building , and
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#1732852345418550-677: The university. The Quadrangle has been occupied by Saybrook College and Branford College , two of the original ten residential colleges at Yale . The collegiate system of Yale University was largely inspired by the Oxbridge model of residential and teaching colleges at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the UK. The building was donated by Anna M. Harkness to memorialize her son, Yale College graduate Charles W. Harkness , who died in 1916. Charles' brother, Edward Harkness , became
575-416: Was completed in 1921. As initially built, the Quadrangle contained dorm rooms for 630 students, a dining hall, and seven courtyards. Dry moats with low walls, a frequent architectural motif at Yale, were first used by this building and were planted with ivy , flowers, and trees by landscape architect Beatrix Jones Farrand with an eye to both increased privacy and street beautification. Harkness Tower ,
600-421: Was remodeled just more than a decade ago, with the rest of the college. First-year Branfordians live in entryways A through C of Vanderbilt Hall on Old Campus and share the building with the first-year students of Saybrook College , who live in entryways D through F of the same building. The college was renovated in 2000 as part of the University's renovation of all the residential colleges. In 2016,
625-400: Was the calm and subdued character of the College. Chauncey Tinker commented that Saybrook was like an anthill, but Branford was like an oyster bed. In records of the time, the main thing that stands out about Branford is the activity among its students, and of encouragement of activity on the part of Master Mendell, who commented that oyster beds produce pearls. Branford College was named for
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