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Mary
K. Morgan and Maybeck, 1924
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Principia
Commission
The Principia was founded in 1898
by Mary Kimball Morgan (1861-1948) as a school for Christian Scientists.
By 1916 the school, located on Page and Belt Avenues in St. Louis, was
academically accredited from kindergarten through junior college. Principia
eventually outgrew its premises and began to consider plans for a four-year
college in a new location. In 1923 San Francisco architect Bernard Ralph
Maybeck (1862-1957) was retained and a master plan for the College was
begun for a site west of St. Louis. In 1930 a new and larger campus site
was chosen at Elsah, Illinois, and the next year, during the height of
the Great Depression, construction was begun. In 1935, with most of the
construction completed, the College moved from St. Louis to Elsah.
The design and construction of Principia
College was the largest commission in Maybeck's long career and became,
in his own words, "his favorite child." The Principia commission included
general plans for two campus sites.
In addition, Maybeck produced designs for a chapel,
six dormitories, a temporary dining room/kitchen complex, science building,
field house, and two temporary classrooms. Among the unexecuted projects
were designs for the "Great Hall," Library and School of Nations complex,
an administration building, faculty offices, and classroom cottages "styled"
to express the disciplines that would be taught in them. One pastel rendering,
for example, showed a French provincial cottage with hipped roof and half-timbering
for French classes.
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