"A great, bristling, brick Valhalla," Henry James called it. Memorial Hall was at first hailed as an outstanding example of Gothic Revival architecture, but when the style fell from favor, even one of the building's architects looked askance at the edifice. "I regret that [we] were not able to make a better use of the opportunities afforded us," said Henry van Brunt, A.B. 1854. Now, Memorial Hall's interior vastnesses, its 5,000 square feet of stained glass, and its tower are resplendent once again. Its ups, downs, and ups are attractively told in Memorial Hall: A Harvard Renaissance, a 13-minute video narrated by Philip Parsons, former director of planning in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The video was written, directed, and produced (with the help of a small grant from the Development Office) by Carol Lynn Alpert '79. Copies--at $21, postpaid--may be ordered from her (calpert@mos.org) at 93 Kirkland Street, Cambridge 02138 (in the considerably lengthened shadow of the great hall itself).
