Facilities

Old Chapel Ranked among Top 30 Most Beautiful College Cathedrals and Chapels

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Old Chapel

Old Chapel was recently listed among the Top 30 Most Beautiful College Cathedrals and Chapels in the U.S. as ranked by Best College Reviews.

According to the Best College Reviews website, the ranking was developed to call attention to the beautiful architecture, particularly places of worship, that exist on college campuses across the country.

Opened in 1885, Old Chapel was conceived as a multipurpose building, with a chapel for lectures and religious services and a library with reading room. It quickly became the pride of the campus.

By 1936, however, greater enrollment and the opening of the Goodell Library led to the renovation of the first-floor library into additional classrooms, seminar rooms and a lecture hall. Old Chapel served as a classroom building for the next 60 years, as well as the home of the Minuteman Marching Band beginning in the 1960s.

Closed in 1999 because of deterioration, it was renovated and reopened in 2017. The revitalized Old Chapel now serves students, faculty and alumni as a campus resource: the first floor provides a flexible layout for student study, video-wall, gallery exhibitions and community events; and the Great Hall on the top floor provides a large open space for performances, lectures, receptions and weddings.

In October, Old Chapel was honored with a commendation from the Victorian Society in America for the university’s “comprehensive exterior restoration and adaptive use of the interior,” and in November it was honored with a Massachusetts Historical Commission 2017 Historic Preservation Award.

The building was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Although Old Chapel appears as Number 8 on the Best College Reviews list, the 30 entries are in no particular order.

The full article can be found here.