The first plan for the University called for a Professorship of
Engineering and Architecture, but no attention was paid to the latter
subject until the appointment of W.L.B. Jenney, to the Professorship of
Architecture in 1876. Appropriations failed, however, and the chair was
discontinued in 1880, not to be revived until 1906, when a Department of
Architecture was organized under the charge of Emil Lorch, A.M.,
Harvard, '03, with the two departments associated under the title of the
Department (later Colleges) of Engineering and Architecture. Within
recent years special courses have been organized leading to degrees in
Architectural Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Aeronautical
Engineering, as well as special groups of courses in such branches as
sanitary, transportation, automobile, hydro-mechanical, industrial, and
gas engineering and paper manufacturing. A reorganization of the
numerous degrees given at one time in the Engineering College has now
reduced the degrees to two, B.S. in Engineering and B.S. in
Architecture.
[Illustration: THE ENGINEERING QUADRANGLE]
Originally the work in engineering was centered in what is now the old
south wing of University Hall. The first building on the Campus used
exclusively for the engineering courses was the first section of the
Engineering Laboratories built in 1881-82, as the result of the
insistence of Dr. Frieze, then Acting President, that an unexpended
appropriation of $2,500 be used immediately. At short intervals further
additions were made and in 1900 the building, now known as the
Engineering Shops, assumed its present form. In 1895 a further extension
of the work in engineering was required, and the adjacent campus
residence was remodeled for the purpose. This proved inadequate almost
before completion and in 1902 the construction of the present
Engineering Building was authorized. Standing across the southeast
corner of the Campus and with the diagonal walk carried through it under
a picturesque archway, this is one of the University's largest buildings
and forms, with its two wings, and the Engineering Shops and the old
Heating Plant, a square known as the Engineering Quadrangle. It was
completed in 1904, but a further addition was necessitated in 1909, so
that it now has a floor space of about 136,000 square feet, and cost
with equipment about $400,000. In the basement of the long wing which
extends down East University Avenue is the naval experimental tank, 300
feet long and 22 feet wide, in which models of various types of ships
are tested by the Department of Marine Engineering. The only other tank
of this character in the United States is at the Washington Navy Yard,
and the facilities of the University's tank, therefore, were used
extensively by the Government during the late war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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