Henry Hornbostel (1867-1961)

Noted architect Henry Hornbostel,

born in Brooklyn, NY, was classically trained at Columbia University in New York City and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  He began working in Pittsburgh in 1904 after winning the Carnegie Technical Schools Competition for the design of the modern day Carnegie Mellon University.  Later, he founded the Department of Architecture at Carnegie Tech, and, in addition to a private practice, he taught at Columbia University.  Hornbostel executed projects throughout the country, including the campus plans for Emory University and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in addition to the one at Carnegie Tech.

His work was known in Atlanta through a project for The Coca-Cola Company.  Hornbostel was enamored of northern Italy, and on a visit to the city to view the future campus site, he was impressed with similarities—“rolling hills, pines, and even marble as native stone”—to his favorite region.  In the original architectural rendering of the campus plan, Theology and Law buildings flank a stately central library and are joined to it by an elegant colonnade.  Executed in golden hues, the rendering suggests an opulent academic oasis rising shimmering out fo the red Georgia clay.  Unfortunately, Bishop Warren Candler, then chancellor of Emory University, was not impressed.  His idea was for a simpler style, less adorned and less expensive.  The architect’s campus plan was scaled down, and the great central building with its colonnade never came to fruition.

Work on the new University began with the erection of Theology and Law buildings, and Dobbs and Winship residence halls, completed in 1916.  Anatomy, Physiology and the first two floors of Chemistry, for the accommodation of the School of Medicine followed in 1917.  Two years later Physics, the chief classroom building of the College, and Alabama residence hall completed the first major building program. 

The 1998 Emory University Campus Plan established guiding principles that served to inform campus development for succeeding years. Since that time the campus has been transformed into a beautiful walking environment, and the sense of an Emory architectural identity, based on the Hornbostel vision, has been restored.

Sources: English, Thomas H. Emory University 1915-1965

Emory Magazine, March 1987

Hauk, Gary S. A Legacy of Heart and Mind: Emory Since 1836

Campus Planning Web site Executive Summary CPU4, Emory.edu