Grand Lodge of the Masonic Temple

A pupil of Samuel Sloan and a member of the first graduating class of Girard College, Windrim chose a monochromatic but highly sculptural version of Victorian historicism, here represented by stridently asymmetrical towers, the larger of which is derived from E. M. Lamb's tower for St. Martin's chapel in Gospel Oak, London, published in 1866 in The Builder. The masonry is cool, sparkling gray Quincy granite that links the facade to the customary Pennsylvania blue-gray marble of civic architecture and contrasts with the structural polychromy preferred by the coming generation of elite Philadelphians. While the exterior is generally Norman in detail, the interior, as decorated by the city's great colorist George Herzog, represents the history of architecture from Egypt to the Renaissance after the interpretation of architect Owen Jones, all styles in which Masons claim to have contributed.