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Simmons College, Main Building

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1903–1904, 1909, 1929, Peabody and Stearns. 300 The Fenway.
  • Emmanual College (Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur Convent and Academy of Notre Dame, 1914-1919; Emmanuel College, 1919-present) (Keith Morgan)

Chartered in 1899, Simmons College proclaimed a mission of educating women for independent livelihoods. Peabody and Stearns designed the original campus structure to reflect this seriousness of purpose in its Renaissance styling and classical references. It was obviously intended to be compatible with the neighboring Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (completed in 1902), as well as with the nearby Fenway residential/institutional district in its choice of style and materials. The West Wing was completed in 1909, and the East Wing in 1929, both to original designs. Simmons Graduate School of Management also occupies two William Minot family town houses (now the Mary Garland Center) that Peabody and Stearns designed at 409 and 419 Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay, part of an important pattern of adaptive reuse of historic architecture by area educational institutions.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan
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Data

What's Nearby

Fenway Court, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Boston Latin School
Harvard Medical School, New Research Building
Merck Research Laboratories, Emmanuel College
School of the Museum of Fine Arts

Citation

Keith N. Morgan, "Simmons College, Main Building", [Boston, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-FL15.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 189-189.

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