The Archives of The University of Notre Dame 607 Hesburgh Library Notre Dame, IN 46556 574-631-6448 [email protected] Notre Dame Archives: Alumnus THE NOTRE DAME ALUMNUS Vol. 17 No. 2 JSto, i s. \x \ • J. Lt ! V- : S. U I :.^ CBEETS THE aLDMHI or HOTEL M^ALPIN fnm $2.80 a day. singla. $4 and $4.S0 danUa. MIOAOWAY AT 34tfc mOBT MBWTMUCGirr Vadn XHOTTltaM(awnl lOHN I. WOEUTU, JVUMW The Notre Dame Alumnus JAMES E. ARMSTRONG, 75 The magaziae is published from October to June inclusive by the Alumni Association Member of die American Edilor of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Indiana. The subscription price is $2.00 Alumni. Council a year; the price of single copies is 25 cents. The annua) alumni dues of $5.00 include WlUOAM R. DoOLEY. 76 B yearns subscription to THE ALIHiINIJS. Entered as second-^lass matter January 1. Member of Nal1. Cadiolic Managmg Editor 1923, at the post office at Notre Dame. Indiana, under the Act of March 3. 1379. Alumni Federation Vol. 17 NOVEMBER, 1938 No. 2 The Architects of Notre Dame By Francis W. Kervick Head, Department of Architecture Famous Men Have From the Begin- nins Contributed Much to the Artistry of the Notre Dame Campus. (To commemorate the iOth anniver­ the chapel on St Mary's Lake and in two years. The offer was accepted, sary of the Department of Architec­ purchased from the government a and, with an initial capital of jnst ture at Notre Dame, Professor Ker­ tract of land surrounding it, with • four hundred dollars. Father Sorin vick this year issued a handsome il- the thought that this would be an and his Brothers succeeded in build­ lustrated review. This article formed excellent site for a school. When age ing promptly what is known as Old the historical preface in that revieto. and debts prevented him from further College—still standing. It was and is —Eds.) effort in this direction, he made over a brick structure forty feet square Since the middle of the seventeenth to the Bishop of Vincennes the title and a story and a, half in height, on to the land. the south shore of the waters which century there has been on the grounds later gave to the TTniversity its cor­ now occupied by the University of Fortunately, Rev. Edward Frede­ porate name of Notre Dame dn Lac Notre Dame some form of human rick Sorin and six Brothers, of the It was indeed a college building in shelter. There were first the huts of religious community known as the simplest form, but it satisfied the the Potawattomie Indians, who be­ Congregation of the Holy Cross, had conditions attached to the gift of came Christians at an early period, just come from France to the Dio­ land. Alexis Coqnillard, a youth who and of the French yoyageurs who cese of Vincennes, for work on the had guided Father Sorin and his com­ paused at the little St Mary's Lake American missions of Indiana and in panions through the forest from his as they made their difficult way west­ the field of education. The bishop of father's trading post in South Bend ward to their goal—the Mississippi Vincennes offered Father Sorin and to their new home on St Mary's River—over the Portage, at the St. the Brothers the tract of land deeded Lake, was the first student enrolled Joseph's Eiver, which borders the to him by Father Badin, on condition in the new college. present land of the university. Some­ that the young priest would take what later a log chapel, with living spiritual care of the Indian mission room, was built for the priest who and have a college open for students Before long there was need for taught the Indians the truths of the more ample quarters for the school, Catholic religion so well that for gen­ and so a second building was begun, to provide the needed accommoda­ erations they kept them in mind, in tions, for a college that was natural­ spite of the later destruction of the ly French in many respects. It was chapel and the long period of English French in disdplbie and French in occupation. methods of instruction, and with help Pokagon, the great chief of the from various sources in France the Potawattomies, • fearing that these institution enjoyed a prompt and truths would be forgotten by his steady growth. The poor of Prance, people, made to Father Gabriel Rich­ the nobility, and even the Emperor ard the vicar general of Detroit, a and Empress of France were alike touching appeal for a priest as mis­ intrigued with the story that came sionary to the tribes of Indians still across the Atlantic concerning the left in this part of the wilderness. devotion . and self-sacrifice of their Father Richard persuaded the great countrymen in caring for the 'red' missionary pastor Father Stephen Indians. Theodore Badin to include this Indian mission in his already very extensive One part in the development of 'parish.' The addition of some thou­ the institution was the laying out of sands of square miles did not appall a broad avenue, for nearly a mile to­ a priest who wandered constantly ward South Bend, and IJie planting from Southern Kentucky to Northern of a botanic garden. And soon there Indiana seeking out on the prairies were visions of a great church to and in the forests the scattered be. erected, even though the young white Catholics. Father Badin rebuilt PBOFESSOE P. W. KEBVICK university could as yet be regarded 40 The Notre Dame Alumnus November, 1938 only as an experiment in the wilder­ bers of the faculty of former decades. ment in the plan of the University. ness on the frontier of civilization. On the upper floors of the building As the school grew other buildings . Years of hard trial were ahead, were the study halls, in which the were needed. It was the plan of years that brought terrible con­ students had their desks, and the Father Sorin to have a grand fagade tagion, civil war, and destruction of dormitories, with their curtained fronting on the lake, in addition to most of the buildings, including a rooms, as also the classrooms, the that facing the quadrangle to the new main building, by fire. The build­ library and private rooms for mem­ south of the buildings, but this idea ings, however, might be destroyed, bers of the faculty. Such was the was not carried out. A congeries of but the enthusiasm of Father Edward general arrangement in the building structures was added at the rear of Sorin survived every kind of discour­ which for many years served the the main building, several of them agement, and so a much larger and purposes mentioned and which-is still by the Community carpenters. Brother better college building, the present Charles and Brother Columbkille. The main structure, was promptly deter­ group is simple and utilitarian, but mined upon. A competition was an­ there is about these buildings a charm nounced as a way of securing the that attracts the trained designer, best jrassible design for the new and as long as they stand they con­ structure, and more than thirty archi­ stitute what in student parlance is tects submitted plans. The records do known as the "French Quarter." not give the names of the architects who had designed the earlier build­ ing and there is no infonnation con­ The University church was de- cerning the method employed in the designed by the architect Patrick selection of designs. It seems that Keeley, a pupil of Pugin and a Father Sorin .was his own profes­ noted builder of Catholic churches in sional adrisor and his own jui-y. He the United States. When one recalls had in an early period at Notre Dame his thoroughly English cathedral in visualized the golden dome which was Charleston, South Carolina, he won­ to be the pedestal of the patron of ders who dictated the essentially the University, Mary Immaculate, French plan of the church at Notre whose help is so often manifest in Dame. A church nearly three hundr-^ the histoiy of Notre Dame. feet long, with three aisles and witli ambulatory and chevet chapels, was an ambitious effort for a university This educational edifice, designed of sixty-seven years ago. It is built of the same brick as the main build­ by W. J. Edbrooke, at one time archi­ Architecture Building tect of the United States Treasury, ing, and the trim is in Joliet lime­ stone. The interior decoration re­ is large and impressive. With the the official center of the University. dimensions of a state capitol, the minds one of Santa Maria sopra This main building is built of pale Minerva, and this resemblance is not structure rises four stories upon a yellow brick, made of a clay found high basement. For many years it strange when one recalls that the near St. Joseph's River and burned painter, Luigi Gregori, was an artist provided the space necessai-y for prac­ with wood cut from the surrounding tically all the activities of the high- of established reputation in Home forests. It is an eclectic and some­ before he came to Notre Dame to school and the college students. In what naive combination of pointed the basement were two large dining devote twenty years to the decora­ windows, mediaeval mouldings, and tion of the University buildings and rooms, ser\'ed by food carts from a classic columns. The great dome of kitchen near by.