Harkness Tower

Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower over the year
General information
Architectural style	Collegiate Gothic
Location	New Haven, Connecticut
Construction started	1917
Completed	1921
Owner	Yale University
Height	216 ft. (66 m)
Technical details
Floor count	9
Design and construction
Architect	James Gamble Rogers
Other designers	Lee Lawrie, sculptor

Harkness Tower is a masonry tower at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Part of the Collegiate Gothic Memorial Quadrangle complex completed in 1922, it is named for Charles William Harkness, brother of Yale's largest benefactor, Edward Harkness.

The tower was constructed between 1917 and 1921 as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her recently deceased son, Charles William Harkness, an 1883 Yale graduate. When the residential college system was inaugurated in 1933, the tower became part of Branford College.

It was designed by James Gamble Rogers, a Yale College classmate of Anna Harkness's other son, Edward S. Harkness. James S. Hedden was the contractor's supervisor for the project and took many photographs of the construction's progress.

The tower underwent renovations from September 2009 to May 2010 to repair its masonry and ornament.

Harkness Tower was the first couronne ("crown") tower in English Perpendicular Gothic style built in the modern era.James Gamble Rogers, who designed the tower and many of Yale's Collegiate Gothic structures, said it was inspired by Boston Stump, the 272-foot (83 m) tower of the parish church of St Botolph in Boston, Lincolnshire. The 15th-century Boston Stump is the tallest parish church tower in England. Rogers also based some details on the 16th-century tower of St Giles church in Wrexham, Wales, where Elihu Yale is buried. In turn, Harkness Tower has been identified as the direct influence for the tower of the Cathedral of Christ the King in Hamilton, Ontario.