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Delaware County Institute for Science

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1867. 11 Veterans Sq.
  • (© George E. Thomas)

The institute's brick building is as emblematic of its moment of construction as Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) was in raising a curtain on the scientific revolution while most of the culture was looking backward. The iconic gesture of the handsome wood Doric portico at the entrance refers to the fast vanishing classical world, while the plain, nearly industrial, structure with its two-story hall plan, not unlike a typical urban Methodist church, bespoke the forces for change that would characterize the future. The first floor accommodates work space and a small museum of natural history curiosities, while the second story is occupied by a large auditorium where the rapidly changing scientific information of the new age could be communicated. In some respects it is a diminutive version of the Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia ( PH128).

Writing Credits

Author: 
George E. Thomas
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Data

What's Nearby

PNC Bank (First National Bank of Media)
Delaware County Courthouse
U.S. Post Office
Trader Joe's (Eleventh Infantry Pennsylvania National Guard Armory)
Media Presbyterian Church

Citation

George E. Thomas, "Delaware County Institute for Science", [Media, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-DE17.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 2

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, George E. Thomas, with Patricia Likos Ricci, Richard J. Webster, Lawrence M. Newman, Robert Janosov, and Bruce Thomas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 222-222.

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