Old Goucher College Buildings is a national

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from cer ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. It is an approximate 18-block area in the middle of Baltimore which developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The neighborhood is characterized generally by two- and three-story brick

row houses In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

constructed mostly in the 19th century and several large-scale institutional and commercial buildings dating from both centuries. Stylistically, the area is characterized primarily by

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italia ...

, Romanesque,

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

, and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

influences. The area once served as a campus for the Women's College of Baltimore, now

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...

, until the school relocated to

Towson Towson () is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Baltim ...

. The school was named for clergyman John Goucher, who once served as a pastor at Lovely Lane Church.The district includes a series of large scale, multiple story brick and stone structures built for college. Three buildings designed by the nationally famous architect

Stanford White Stanford White (November 9, 1853 – June 25, 1906) was an American architect. He was also a partner in the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, one of the most significant Beaux-Arts firms. He designed many houses for the rich, in addition ...

are found here. It was added to 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 ...

in 1978. The former main campus building has been converted into the Baltimore Lab School, and many of the other structures have been re-purposed for commercial and residential use. The site has been the focus of a number of preservation efforts by local advocacy groups.

External links

*, including undated photo, at Maryland Historical Trust
Boundary Map of the Old Goucher College Historic District, Baltimore City
at Maryland Historical Trust

References

Historic districts in Baltimore School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland {{BaltimoreCityMD-NRHP-stub