The Hugh Roy and Lillie Cullen Building (formerly the Administration Building) is the central administration building of

Southwestern University Southwestern University (Southwestern or SU) is a private liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest college or university in Texas. Southwestern o ...

Georgetown, Texas Georgetown is a city in Texas and the county seat of Williamson County, Texas, United States. The population was 67,176 at the 2020 census. It is 30 miles (48 km) north of Austin. Founded in 1875 from four existing colleges, the oldest of ...

. Completed in 1900, the Cullen Building was declared a

Recorded Texas Historic Landmark Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL) is a designation awarded by the Texas Historical Commission for historically and architecturally significant properties in the U.S. state of Texas. RTHL is a legal designation and the highest honor the st ...

in 1962 and has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

since 1975, together with neighboring Mood-Bridwell Hall.

History

was formed in 1873 through the union of four earlier colleges and universities across Texas. By the 1890s the program had grown significantly, and between 1895 and 1897 the university made plans to build a permanent administration building at the entrance to the school's

campus. The building was meant to house the university's administrative offices, as well as holding a chapel, a library, and classrooms. CullenOld

The structure was initially designed by Southwestern professor

Robert Stewart Hyer Robert Stewart Hyer (October 18, 1860 – May 29, 1929) was an educator and researcher in Texas noted for experimenting with early X-ray and telegraphy equipment. He served as president of Southwestern University before becoming the first presiden ...

(a physicist, not an architect), who was inspired by the works of H. H. Richardson. Architects Layton & Raymond of Oklahoma refined the design, and the building's construction was overseen by Hyer, who had become the university's president by the time construction began. Work on the building began with the laying of its

cornerstone The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over tim ...

on September 8, 1898. Shortages of funding delayed construction during 1899, but Southwestern's Administration Building was completed on April 23, 1900 and used for classes that autumn. Mood-Bridwell Hall (named for university President Francis Asbury Mood) was subsequently built nearby as a student dormitory, with construction beginning in 1906 and completed in 1908. The hall served as a barracks for students in the Student Army Training Corps during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and again for the

V-12 Navy College Training Program The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II. Between July 1, 1943, and June 30, 1946, more than 125,000 participants were enrolled in 131 colleg ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Since 1965, the hall has held offices for faculty and campus organizations rather than student residences. The Administration Building was declared a

in 1962. Together with Mood Hall, it was added to the

on April 23, 1975 in recognition of its architectural and historical significance.

Renovations

The Administration Building underwent a substantial renovation in 1976–7, which included modernization of the structure's climate control and safety features. The work was paid for by a grant from the Cullen Foundation of

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

(named for industrialist

Hugh Roy Cullen Hugh Roy Cullen (July 3, 1881 – July 4, 1957) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Cullen was heavily involved in the petroleum industry having struck oil near Texas in 1928. He was a large supporter of multiple educational institu ...

), in recognition of which the structure was renamed the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cullen Building at its rededication ceremony on October 14, 1977. Further renovations in 2002 and 2011 repaired and replaced windows, improved the building's elevator, and made further mechanical, electrical and climate-control upgrades.

Architecture

The Cullen Building is a roughly rectangular three-story hall, clad with local white

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

on its facade, with a large square

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifi ...

projecting several stories higher from the southwest corner, and a smaller round tower on the southeast corner. The building is designed in a Richardsonian Romanesque style, with rusticated stonework, cylindrical

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es with conical caps, and round-headed Romanesque arches mixed with rectangular transom windows. The exterior walls are made of hand-laid limestone, laid by builders Flume & Waterston, who had also previously done stonework for the

Texas State Capitol The Texas State Capitol is the capitol and seat of government of the American state of Texas. Located in downtown Austin, Texas, the structure houses the offices and chambers of the Texas Legislature and of the Governor of Texas. Designed in 1881 ...

. As additional buildings have been added to Southwestern's campus, the Cullen Building's architectural style has served as the standard for their design. The main entrances are in the south facade, formed as a pair of massive stone arches set symmetrically to the sides of the central mass of the hall. The doorways and windows penetrating the limestone facade are topped with a mixture of round arches (especially on the ground floor) and transom windows. A ring of

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian R ...

s surrounds the building above the third story at the roofline; above, a gray

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

is surmounted by a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

Tower

One of the Cullen Building's most prominent features is its tower, which reaches up from the hall's southwest corner to form a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

overlooking the campus. The tower has a square cross-section, and protrudes slightly from the corner of the hall. Its south and west faces are penetrated by three columns of rectangular windows from the second story to the fourth; those on the second floor are topped by transom windows, while those on the third and fourth are topped by two transom windows each. The third- and fourth-story corners bear small cylindrical

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from th ...

s which terminate in conical pinnacles. Steep

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d dormers penetrate the roofline above the fourth level, framed by additional pinnacles. The tower's interior is accessed from a third-story office by a

spiral staircase Stairs are a structure designed to bridge a large vertical distance between lower and higher levels by dividing it into smaller vertical distances. This is achieved as a diagonal series of horizontal platforms called steps which enable passage ...

, which leads up into a fourth-story room that fills the tower. Separate from the main body of the Cullen Building and windowed on all four sides, this chamber affords an elevated view of the campus and of surrounding Georgetown.

References

External links