FOUNDER'S HALL:
Founder's Hall at Girard College is one of the greatest expressions of nineteenth-century Greek Revival architecture in the United States. As a civic ensemble, it ranks among the most notable in the country, and is integrally linked to the metropolitan expansion of Philadelphia and the growth of its institutions for education, social reform, and humanitarian aid.
Members of the city government held an architectural competition to award the job of designing Girard's school. Their two million-dollar construction budget ensured that the 1832 competition was the first American architectural competition to have truly national participation. The winning architect was Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887).
Founder's Hall took 14 years to complete and was then the second-most expensive building in America! Thomas Ustick Walter went on to design the dome of the United State Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Furthermore, Founder's Hall and the unique orphans' school for which it is the centerpiece, honors its founder Stephen Girard; its endowment heralded an epoch of unparalleled philanthropy by one of America's wealthiest citizens.
The estate of Stephen Girard, who left the $2 million bequest that still funds the boarding school, spared no expense. Chester County white marble sheathes the walls and columns. The doors are carved from white pine slabs as thick as a book.
Founder Hall was posted to the National Register of Historic Places on August 4, 1969!
Founder's Hall at Girard College is one of the greatest expressions of nineteenth-century Greek Revival architecture in the United States. As a civic ensemble, it ranks among the most notable in the country, and is integrally linked to the metropolitan expansion of Philadelphia and the growth of its institutions for education, social reform, and humanitarian aid.
Members of the city government held an architectural competition to award the job of designing Girard's school. Their two million-dollar construction budget ensured that the 1832 competition was the first American architectural competition to have truly national participation. The winning architect was Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887).
Founder's Hall took 14 years to complete and was then the second-most expensive building in America! Thomas Ustick Walter went on to design the dome of the United State Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Furthermore, Founder's Hall and the unique orphans' school for which it is the centerpiece, honors its founder Stephen Girard; its endowment heralded an epoch of unparalleled philanthropy by one of America's wealthiest citizens.
The estate of Stephen Girard, who left the $2 million bequest that still funds the boarding school, spared no expense. Chester County white marble sheathes the walls and columns. The doors are carved from white pine slabs as thick as a book.
Founder Hall was posted to the National Register of Historic Places on August 4, 1969!
Founder's Hall Video
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GIRARD COLLEGE
No Writer Attributed March 11, 1882 Girard College, one of the wealthiest educational institutions in the country, is perhaps the least known of any in its internal working, nor is it generally known that it possesses the most beautiful and costly of college buildings. The chief college building is the most magnificent and durable structure in the United States. It is built after the model of a Grecian temple. It resembles the Parthenon, with a peristyle of thirty-six columns, whose cost was about $13,000 each. The cella or body of the building is 111 feet wide and 169 feet long. This one structure cost two millions of dollars. The entire sum given by the donor for a college was absorbed in the building, but the real estate which Girard gave, in trust, to the city for the support of the college, has increased in value, so that it yields annually in rents $800,000, and it is constantly growing more productive. The college grounds contain 41 acres, with about 40 distinct buildings for the use of the pupils, including a chapel, dormitories and laboratories. More than one thousand orphans are here instructed, fed, clothed and cared for in every particular by the various officers of the college. They are taken at the early age of six years, some of them ignorant of the alphabet, and are kept under "tutors and governors" for eight years; then if suitable places can be found are apprenticed to some trade. The design of the founder was to make practical men, hence classical training was neither enjoined nor forbidden in the will. The students, therefore, seem immature compared with those of New England universities. The principal building is fireproof; even the roof is built of slabs of marble. The stairs from bottom to top are self-supporting, without wood-work. This building is devoted wholly to the business of instruction, and the teachers are responsible for the good conduct of the pupils while under their care. When they pass from the recitation rooms they fall under the eye of an entirely different set of officers, who regulate their whole life apart from books. The discipline for offenders consists chiefly of admonition, deprivation of privileges, and seclusion. In extreme cases corporal punishment is administered in the presence of the president. Incorrigibles are expelled. A majority of the teachers and overseers are women. In the department of instruction are seven male professors and sixteen female teachers. The household is administered by a matron, six prefects and five governesses. The order and neatness of all the premises are quite perfect. The college was open for occupation in 1848. With the exception of one year, William H. Allen, LL. D., has been its president. His administration has been wonderfully successful. He still retains his place and influence at the ripe old age of seventy-four years. Mr. Girard defined an orphan as a white child whose father was dead. The mother who commits her fatherless boy to the care of this board may visit him or he may visit her once in six weeks; or she may never hear of him again till she reads his name in print as a lawyer, doctor, artist or member of Congress. Though no clergyman is welcomed to even enter the grounds of the college, still public worship is maintained every day in a splendid chapel, conducted by the president or an officer of the college. |
Stephen Girard
Born May 20, 1750 - Died December 26, 1831
On Founder's Day - Stephen Girard's burial site is adorned with
beautiful floral wreaths! The wreaths come from Girard College Alumni Chapters
located throughout the USA!
All Chapters - proud members of the Girard College Alumni Association.
We, the adoptive sons of Stephen Girard, honor the birth of our benefactor
in remembrance and appreciation
of Stephen Girard's greatness gift to us and to the world - his
"Girard College"
As Stephen Girard envisioned it, created it and mandated all of its operations to be!
His - "Girard College" became world renowned and respected as one of the
most successful and greatest education Institutions in the world!
This website is a "reality display" of the education, campus environment and
successful operations of the "Girard College"
that Stephen Girard planned for his adopted sons to experience!
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Founder’s Hall at Girard College (1833–1847) is considered one of the finest examples of American Greek-Revival architecture. School founder Stephen Girard specified in his will the dimensions and plan of the building. Nicholas Biddle (1786–1844) was chairman of the School’s building committee, banker and financier and president of the Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia.
Girard’s will demanded an architectural competition for the school's design. Endowed with his $2-million contribution, the 1832 competition was the first American architectural competition to have truly national participation. The winning architect was Thomas Ustick Walter (1804–1887). After the Girard commission, Walter went on to design the dome of the United State Capitol in Washington, D.C. He later returned to Philadelphia and became an assistant architect on the City Hall and, in 1857, a founding member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Founder’s Hall was the school’s original classroom building. It has three main floors, each measuring 14,000 square feet. The plan for each floor, according to Stephen Girard's specifications, consists of a 100-by-20-foot front hall, four 50 ft. square rooms with 25 ft. ceilings arranged two-by-two, and a back hall that is the same size as the front hall. The scale of the spaces was impressively large when the building first opened.
