Wren Building
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Wren Building, College of William and Mary
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_(College_of_William_and_Mary).jpg)
The front of the Wren Building behind a snow-covered Lord Botetourt statue
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| Location | Williamsburg, Virginia |
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| Coordinates | 37°16′15″N 76°42′33″W / 37.27083°N 76.70917°WCoordinates: 37°16′15″N 76°42′33″W / 37.27083°N 76.70917°W |
| Built | 1700 |
| Architect | Christopher Wren |
| Architectural style | Renaissance |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000929 |
| VLR # | 137-0013 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | October 9, 1960 |
| Designated VLR | September 9, 1969 |
The Wren Building is the signature building of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. Along with the Brafferton and President's House, these buildings form the College's Ancient Campus.
Construction of the first building on this site began August 8, 1695 and was completed by 1700. After several fires and rebuildings, the Wren Building was the first major building restored or reconstructed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., after he and the Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin began Colonial Williamsburg's restoration in the late 1920s. The building's current state dates to the 20th-century restoration by Boston architects Perry Shaw & Hepburn. The College named the building in honor of the English architect Sir Christopher Wren, after the Reverend Hugh Jones, a William and Mary mathematics professor, wrote in 1724 that the College Building was "modeled by Sir Christopher Wren". Perry Shaw and Hepburn's restoration reflects the building's historic appearance from its reconstruction in 1716 after a 1705 fire to 1859, when it burned again.
The building is constructed out of red brick in the style of Flemish Bond, as was typical for official buildings in 17th- and 18th-century Williamsburg, including several walls remaining from previous structures, and it contains classrooms, offices, a refectory (known as the Great Hall), kitchen, and a chapel (added as a south wing in 1732). On the top of the building is a weather vane with the number 1693, the year the College was founded. In the early 1770s, plans were drawn up to complete the building as a quadrangle. Alumnus Thomas Jefferson (class of 1762) drew up a floorplan submitted to Governor Dunmore and foundations were laid in 1774. The looming War of Independence halted further construction, however, and the fourth wing was never completed. The foundations, however, still exist.
The Wren Building is the oldest academic building in continuous use in the United States, ahead of runner-up Massachusetts Hall at Harvard. The Wren Building, previously known simply as "The College" or "The Main Building" was effectively the school's only academic building until the completion of the Brafferton building and President's House in the 1720s and 1730s. The campus only began its westward expansion in the first part of the twentieth century. Students studied, attended religious services, and lived in the Wren Building. After the destruction of Virginia's former capital of Jamestown, Virginia's legislature met in the building's Great Hall as a temporary meeting place from 1700 to 1704 while the Capitol was under construction. When the Capitol burned in 1747, the legislature moved back into the building until the Capitol was reconstructed in 1754. The building also housed a grammar school and an Indian school, which was moved to the Brafferton building, in 1723. The building was used as a military hospital by the French during the American Revolutionary War and by the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
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