Architecture as Expression

For high school, I attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. As a result of reacquainting with some of my classmates, I pulled out some histories of the school. Prior to its current alumni-run non-profit status, The Hill was family-owned and family-run for three generations of the Meigs family. Each generation of family leadership was distinctive in outlook, personality and architectural expression.

Rev. Matthew Meigs was the founder and was not much of a fan of overdoing things. The Reverend founded the school in 1851 with 25 students and when he turned leadership of the school over to his son in 1876, the school still had 25 students. The buildings he built were family residences that we simply expanded for school purposes. 

In contrast, his son, Dr. John Meigs, called "Professor" by many, took a school with 25 students and within 25 years had multiplied enrollment nearly by ten to 228 students and by the time of his untimely death in 1911 at age 62, the school had an enrollment of 348 boys. This rapid leadership created financial strains and Professor responded by issuing stock to a small group of investors (family and faculty) as well as getting alumni support. The buildings he constructed were beautiful in the sense of charming and intimate and are epitomized by the chapel:

After his death, the family used an interim headmaster while Dr. John Meig's son Dwight was readied for leadership which he assumed in 1914. Dwight had been a scholar at The Hill, Yale and Oxford. Unlike the term "Professor" used for his father, Dwight was called the "King" to indicate his autocratic manner. While he did not dramatically expand the student enrollment, he did expand the faculty and the buildings - a combination that had dire financial results and forced him to sell the school to the alumni in 1921. Sadly, he committed suicide a few years later leaving behind a beautifully-written, but heart-breaking letter. Yet the buildings he had constructed moved me more than any other.

So profound was that impact that when I left school, I wrote of my first day "Out of the silent, soft grey air, I walked into Memorial Hall, a dark, dank hall with leaded glass windows, dark Gothic wood carvings and ancient tapestries barely visible. It was morning, and as I stood still on the wet flagstone floor, I could faintly make out the names of the men who had died, names which were painted in gold under the small Gothic arches delicately carved." Memorial Hall was initially priced at $80,000, but ultimately cost $400,000. For scale, with inflation and building costs, roughly $16 million and $80 million in today's dollars and pictured here:

The King's biggest project cost him his position and, ultimately perhaps, his life. But in his buildings, I found an inspiration embedded: that life, its thoughts and actions, is not about charm and warmth, but is an eternal presence of beauty and austerity infused with a melancholic awareness of its evanescence.  

The buildings constructed since the King's death have been functional and useful, but not evocative or moving. The expression of private ownership has given way to public functionality. Yet the King's other great work, the dining room, not only carries as the soul of the school, but is also featured on the cover of a book titled "Old School" by a well-known Hill School alum, Tobias Wolff. Even the dining room chairs purchased in 1914 have not been replaced. As they say, "the value is remembered long after the price is forgotten."