Word: chapels
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Parishioners and residents of the neighborhood around the chapel complained last spring that the proposed height of the new building would block light from coming through the windows of the chapel. After much negotiation, Harvard compromised, revising the Knafel blueprints and leaving the chapel's stained glass windows open to light...
...current situation is a little more complicated: the chapel has been put on sale because of the poor financial situation of its owner, the Swedenborg School of Religion in Newton. But the congregation has the right of first refusal (that is, they have the chance to counter any offer put on the table), and Harvard has the second right of first refusal. Now that the exterior of the chapel has been preserved, it is unlikely that any major destruction will befall the building, but the congregation rightly wants it to remain as a place of worship...
Parishioners admit that they don't have the money to buy the chapel, which would save it once and for all from any kind of alternative use. Harvard does have the money, but the University is understandably reluctant to purchase a building which has limited opportunity for being restructured into classroom or office space...
From a student's perspective, the preservation of the outside of the chapel can be viewed only as positive. The short, elegant building on the corner of Kirkland and Quincy Streets breaks up the string of modern buildings like the Science Center, the Design School and the monstrously tall William James. The neighborhood would lose a good deal of character if the chapel were demolished, and that long walk to Vanserg just wouldn't be the same without...
More substantively, though, from Harvard's perspective, there's something to be said for doing a good deed to the tune of buying the building for the congregation or at least working out a deal helping the congregation purchase the chapel. As we saw recently with the announcement that Memorial Hall's tower will be rebuilt, the University has an appreciation of history and beauty as well as for pragmatism and the bottom line. Harvard knows well that the Chapel has historical significance to our academic life, as both Henry James and his son William (for whom the building which...