Spooner Hall
Lawrence, United States
Exterior only
Visible from the street; the inside is private.
Find out more
Spooner Hall, built in 1893–94 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, was the institution's first library building. Designed by architect Henry Van Brunt in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the stone structure was funded by a bequest from William B. Spooner, a Massachusetts leather merchant with family ties to the university. The building features rough-faced gray Oread Limestone quarried locally, accented with red Dakota sandstone at the quoins, columns, and sills, topped by a steeply pitched gable roof with clay tiles and a sculpted owl. Originally, it contained a reading room on the ground floor, meeting space above, and book stacks within a five-story section. After a new library supplanted it in 1924, the building became the Spooner-Thayer Museum of Art in 1926 and later the University of Kansas Museum of Art before the collection relocated in 1978. Today it serves as an anthropology repository and conference center. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Movement
- Built
- Type
- university building
- Materials
- stone
- Heritage
- listed on the Register of Historic Kansas Places, National Register of Historic Places listed place
- Place
- Lawrence, United States
This building on
Architecturally similar
Tauy Jones HallOttawa, United States
University of Kansas Natural History MuseumLawrence, United States
Old Lawrence City LibraryLawrence, United States
University HallLincoln, United States
Bailey HallLawrence, United States
Carnegie LibraryParsons, United States
Taylor Memorial LibraryConnecticut, United States
Washburn University Carnegie Library BuildingTopeka, United States
Location