Era Ends With Shepley's Death

When 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.