{"id":39963,"date":"2025-11-07T09:43:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=39963"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:51:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T17:51:05","slug":"magazine-from-the-vault-designing-and-building-a-new-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/magazine-from-the-vault-designing-and-building-a-new-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Vault: Designing and Building a New Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Furman University acquired the current campus properties in the early 1950s, the need to develop a master plan for the new campus was evident.<\/strong> Enter Boston-based architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn, Kehoe and Dean.<\/p>\n

The firm had been widely recognized for its work at Harvard University and for restoring buildings in Colonial Williamsburg. With that r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it was obvious to Furman leadership that they could work with 1,000 acres for calculated growth and modern conveniences in a new campus design that would be a national model for what a small liberal arts college campus could be.<\/p>\n

In a 1953 fundraising brochure for the new campus and its buildings, President John Plyler wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman University is an institution of liberal arts and sciences committed to the principle that students should become acquainted with the major fields of human thought before they begin specialized or technical training. Furman students learn to meet personal situations with confidence. They achieve a social point of view that gives them a sense of community responsibility. They acquire a professional interest that will lead them to economic independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat better way to achieve these aims than with a new, purpose-built campus suitable to a postwar, modern environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have been thinking more about these ideals, aims and campus plans lately as the University Archives has recently received a gift of building and campus plans from the archives of Perry Dean Shaw in Boston.\u00a0 Opening the two dozen long poster tubes that arrived in two large wardrobe boxes, I found plans for the later additions to the campus that Perry Dean Shaw designed: the Roe Art Building, Hartness Pavilion, Daniel Chapel, North Village Apartments and more.<\/p>\n

When we look at the initial vision of the campus at the groundbreaking in 1953, there were few changes made to that initial plan \u2013 with one significant exception. The initial Campus Plan called for the chapel to be constructed on the main entrance circle next to the Administration Building, so the chapel would be the first building seen upon entering the main gates of the campus.<\/p>\n

The first buildings constructed in the mid-1950s were the classroom building (Furman Hall), science building, administration buildings, the library, the dining hall and the men\u2019s dormitory by fall 1958. Only later were women\u2019s dorms built, along with McAlister Auditorium. The first chapel services were held in the dining hall, and then in McAlister. As more campus buildings were constructed, the need for a dedicated chapel was pushed back in favor of creating a campus where all four classes of male and female students could live and study, which was finally achieved in 1962.<\/p>\n

Because McAlister Auditorium could hold the bulk of the student body, it was used for chapel services, convocations and other major campus events while the rest of the building program was realized. It was only in 1992, at the time of Furman\u2019s split with the South Carolina Baptist Convention, that funds in the form of a bequest from Mrs. Homozel Daniel came to complete the initial building program and construct the Charles E. Daniel Memorial Chapel at its existing location.<\/p>\n

Having architects\u2019 design and construction plans and blueprints for these later additions to the campus adds to the already rich collections on Furman history that are housed in the Furman University Archives. Did you know there are over 4,000 historic Furman photographs that are online and searchable? Many of them document the layout and construction of our \u201cnew\u201d campus over the years, and you can find them all at libguides.furman.edu\/special-collections\/discover\/digital-collections<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

About the Author\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jeffrey Makala is the associate director for Special Collections and university archivist. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeffery Makala reflects on the original designs of the Furman University campus made available by the original architects. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":39777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3493,3484,1963,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-fall-2025","category-fall-2025","category-furman-magazine","category-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39963"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40239,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39963\/revisions\/40239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}