(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Henry R. Shepley

1887 - 1962

BiographyWhen Boston architect Henry R. Shepley '10 received an honorary degree at the 1957 Commencement, the citation said that "his monument is the good red brick and mortar of his college." Shepley had designed a host of University buildings, including the Houses and Lamont Library; and his death last weekend marked the end of an era in Harvard architecture.

Besides the Houses (Shepley designed both the older, Georgian buildings and also Leverett Towers and Quincy), he drew the plans for the Medical School's Vanderbilt Hall and several freshman dormitories--Wigglesworth, Straus, Mower, and Lionel.

When the University decided to construct new chemistry laboratories in 1928, President Lowell appointed Shepley as the architect. He produced Mallinokrodt and Converse Laboratories, the two buildings which concentrated in a single, compact area all the University's research facilities at that time. Years later, Shepley followed the same principle with three other buildings--the College's biology laboratories, the Computation Center, and the nuclear laboratory housing the University's cyclotron.

Other Shepley buildings at Harvard include Memorial Church, the Fogg Art Museum, and Burr Lecture Hall.

Shepley, who was 75, was a senior partner in the Boston architecture firm of Shepley, Bullfinch, Richardson, and Abbott.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1962/11/28/era-ends-with-shepleys-death-pwhen/ I.S. 1/8/2018

Bio from US Commission of Fine Arts website: HENRY R. SHEPLEY
CFA Service: 1936–1940; Vice Chairman 1938–1940, 1938–1940
Henry Richardson Shepley, FAIA, joined his father’s Boston architectural firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, in 1914; that firm had been established in 1886 as a successor to the office founded by H. H. Richardson, who was Shepley’s maternal grandfather. The firm’s name has evolved over many decades, becoming Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott in 1952, and is now known as Shepley Bulfinch. Many of Shepley’s projects were medical or academic buildings, including New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital as well as buildings at Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar Colleges and Northeastern and Dartmouth Universities. His portfolio also included buildings at Harvard University, among them the Fogg Art Museum. Shepley received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1910 and a diploma from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1914. He was active in design and professional organizations, including the Boston Society of Architects, the Boston Architectural Center, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, and the National Academy of Design. Shepley served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome and on advisory commissions for the Departments of Treasury, State, and War, for the Architect of the Capitol, and for the Federal Projects Division of the Public Works Administration. He was the recipient of the New York Architectural League Medal (1933), the French Legion of Honor (1953), and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal (1958). https://www.cfa.gov/about-cfa/who-we-are/henry-r-shepley accessed 4/5/19 MP

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

Terms