Ayres Hall is a central iconic and historic landmark building at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

(UT) in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

. The building was designed by Miller, Fullenwider and Dowling of Chicago, and completed in 1921. It is named for Brown Ayres (1856–1919), the university's 12th president from 1904–1909. A extensive restoration began in the fall of 2008 and ended in January 2011. The renovations included central air conditioning and heating,

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...

floors and benches,

face The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...

s for the tower's four clocks, refurbished classroom furnishings, such as chairs, tables, and

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

chalkboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...

s, and stairways, and a north courtyard. The faces for the clocks and the terrazzo floors were in the original designs, but had never been installed due to costs. The north courtyard, which faces Cumberland Avenue, was never implemented in the original designs. The

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

structure rises above its base. The distinctive

checkerboard A checkerboard (American English) or chequerboard (British English; see spelling differences) is a board of checkered pattern on which checkers (also known as English draughts) is played. Most commonly, it consists of 64 squares (8×8) of altern ...

feature at the top of the tower has been replicated in UT Orange and white in the endzones at

Neyland Stadium Neyland Stadium ( ), is a sports stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. It serves primarily as the home of the Tennessee Volunteers football team, but is also used to host large conventions and has been a site for several National Footb ...

and at the ends of the court in

Thompson–Boling Arena Thompson–Boling Arena is a multi-purpose arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The arena opened in 1987. It is home to the Tennessee Volunteers (men) and Lady Vols (women) basketball teams. Since 2008, it h ...

, both nearby. The building houses the offices of the University's College of Arts and Sciences as well as UT's mathematics department.

References

External links

Ayres Hall entry on Emporis

Ayres Hall
, SAH ARCHIPEDIA * Justin C. Dothard
About Face: The Coming of Ayres Hall at the University of Tennesseeadditional link
{{National Register of Historic Places University of Tennessee campus School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee School buildings completed in 1921 Gothic Revival architecture in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Knoxville, Tennessee 1921 establishments in Tennessee