Gasson Hall

Gasson Hall is a building on the campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Designed by Charles Donagh Maginnis in 1908, the building influenced the development of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America. Gasson Hall is named after the 13th president of Boston College, Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, considered BC's "second ."

In 1907, newly installed Boston College President Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, determined that BC's cramped, urban campus in Boston's South End was inadequate and unsuited for significant expansion. Inspired by John Winthrop's early vision of Boston as a "city upon a hill," he re-imagined Boston College as a world-renowned university and a beacon of Jesuit education. Less than a year after taking office, he purchased the Lawrence farm on Chestnut Hill, six miles west of the city. He organized an international competition for the design of the campus master plan and set about raising funds for the construction of the "new" university. Two years later, the competition winner was announced and construction began. From a field of entries by some of the most distinguished architects of the day, Charles Donagh Maginnis' proposal for an "Oxford in America" was selected.

Gasson Hall is a seminal example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America. Publication of its design in 1909—and praise from influential American Gothicist Ralph Adams Cram—helped establish Collegiate Gothic as the prevailing architectural style on American university campuses for much of the 20th century. Gasson Hall is credited for the typology of dominant Gothic towers in subsequent campus designs, including those at Princeton (Cleveland Tower, 1913–1917), Yale (Harkness Tower, 1917–1921), and Duke (Chapel Tower, 1930–1935).

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