denny Architectural Art & Design

Penn's picturesque urban campus features some of the most impressive architecture in Philadelphia, including buildings that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. For 120 years, Penn was located in Center City Philadelphia before the campus relocated to West Philadelphia in 1872. The Gothic Revival style College Hall, designed in 1872 by architect Thomas Webb Richards, was the first building constructed on the new campus. The multi-purpose building housed faculty offices, classrooms, a gym, the library and research labs. The original building included clock towers on each side of the center portion of the building. The west tower, which had a large bell that called students to class, was removed 1914 (the bell is now on display in Houston Hall). The east tower was torn down in 1929. Professor David Brownlee of Penn's Department of the History of Art, says, "the University relocated itself really on the crest of a wave of prosperity and achievement. Those buildings built in the first decade or so after we moved to West Philadelphia reflect the energy of an industrial America and of its greatest industrial city." Brownlee, an architectural historian, co-authored "Building America's First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania." Fisher Fine Arts Library, designed by prominent Philadelphia architect Frank Furness in 1891, is also in the National Register of Historic places. The Furness building was renovated and ...