Holder Hall, Princeton

This etching illustrates the importance of Gothic Revival architecture as a style of choice for powerful institutions on both sides of the Atlantic in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After a fire in 1834 destroyed the Old Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament and a former royal residence, the English architect Charles Barry was chosen to rebuild it. Barry’s design, which benefited from the contributions of prominent Gothic Revival architect and scholar A. W. N. Pugin, skillfully integrated the surviving parts of the medieval structure, some of which date back to the eleventh century, into an ornate neo-Gothic whole. Crowned by Victoria Tower in the southwest and the Big Ben clock tower in the north, the New Palace of Westminster projects a vision of continuity in British political authority and national identity. With its medieval roots and ties to prestigious British and European institutions, neo-Gothic architecture also appealed to American universities. In a series of etchings from 1925, John Taylor Arms documented such recently constructed neo-Gothic buildings as Holder Hall, completed in 1910 at Princeton University, where he had studied for two years.