University Museum, the Free Museum of Science and Art

Designed by the young teachers of Penn's architecture department, the museum is a memorable synthesis of medieval and Middle Eastern styles with Arts and Crafts accents. The first scheme—a conventional marbleclad, Roman classical design—was quickly dropped for a far more sensitive brick building that complemented the new directions of the campus under Provost Charles C. Harrison. Of particular note is the architects’ adaptation of the conventional Flemish bond, here with paired stretchers tied together with red pointing, giving the illusion of oversized Roman brick. The use of brick tied the building to the university's late-nineteenth-century assertion of its campus identity. The present building is less than a third the size of the most ambitious scheme that called for three courtyards fronting Spruce Street, and an alternate scheme would have added another set of courtyards to the west with three immense rotundas between the two sets of wings. The vast scheme reflected an intellectual organizational framework in which each court was intended to encompass a continent—initially Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and each rotunda would have represented the major civilization of the continent.