Connecticut Hall - New Haven, Connecticut

Jeremy Edmunds

As winter light rakes across Connecticut Hall's weathered brick facade, Yale's oldest surviving building stands as both patriarch and jester in the university's architectural anthology. The 1752 structure, a Georgian proclamation of collegiate ambition, manages to be both earnestly proper and slyly self-aware.

Its rigorous symmetry — those marching ranks of twelve-over-twelve windows with their pitch-perfect black shutters — speaks to an era when architectural proportion was moral imperative. Yet there's a hint of theatrical flair in that prominent chimney, which rises like an exclamation point above the crisp white cornice.

The dormers, a later addition that some purists might consider architectural punctuation marks, create a rhythmic counterpoint to the building's stern horizontality. Their presence suggests that even in the 18th century, real estate developers (in this case, early college administrators) couldn't resist maximizing usable attic space.

Connecticut Hall has witnessed centuries of academic life, from Noah Webster's lexicographical pursuits to countless undergraduate all-nighters. Its presence on the Old Campus serves as a constant reminder that before Yale became a global institution, it was simply a colonial college with outsize aspirations and a keen eye for architectural permanence.

The building wears its age with the kind of grace that only comes from surviving countless renovations, several architectural fashion cycles, and generations of winter storms. In an era of architectural spectacle, Connecticut Hall's measured restraint feels less like timidity and more like confidence — the rare building that doesn't need to shout to command attention.

Patrina Huff

One of the older buildings on campus. In my time--mid- to late- 90's--it was a computer lab and related offices(?).

Camille Mercier

Merveilleux.

Daniel M. Howell