The campus is in the municipality of
Lower Merion Township. Most of the campus is in the
Bryn Mawr census-designated place. The campus was designed in part by noted landscape designers
Calvert Vaux and
Frederick Law Olmsted, and has subsequently been designated an
arboretum (the
Bryn Mawr Campus Arboretum).
Student residences The majority of Bryn Mawr students live on campus in residence halls. Many of the older residence halls were designed by
Cope & Stewardson (same architects who designed a large part of the
University of Pennsylvania,
Washington University in St. Louis, and
Princeton University campuses) and are known for their
Collegiate Gothic architecture, modeled after
Cambridge University. Each is named after a
county town in
Wales:
Brecon,
Denbigh (1891),
Merion (1885), and
Radnor (1887), and
Pembroke East and West (1892). Rhoads North and South was named after the college's first president, James E. Rhoads; Rockefeller is named after its donor,
John D. Rockefeller. Erdman was opened in 1965, designed by architect
Louis Kahn. In addition, students may choose to live in Batten House (an environmentally friendly co-op). Perry House, which was originally established as the Spanish language house in 1962, was redefined as the Black Cultural Center in the 1970s. In 2015, Perry House was relaunched by the college in the former French tower of Haffner, which had undergone renovations and reconstruction the previous year. Along with Perry, now known as the
Enid Cook '31 Center, a new residence hall was built where the old Haffner Language and Culture House once stood. Glenmede (formerly graduate student housing) is an estate located about a half mile from the main campus which at one point was available housing for undergraduate students. In 2007, it was sold to a conservation buyer as the annual costs of upkeep were too great for the college.
Blanca Noel Taft Memorial Garden In 1908,
John C. Olmsted designed a private garden for
M. Carey Thomas adjoining the
Deanery. The garden was later modified and renamed as the Blanca Noel Taft Memorial Garden. In its current form, the garden is a small enclosure with two wall fountains, one with a small basin and the other with a sunken reflecting pool. The decorative wall tiles above the smaller wall fountain and basin were purchased from
Syria.
Erdman Hall dormitory In 1960, architect
Louis I. Kahn and Bryn Mawr College president,
Katharine Elizabeth McBride, came together to create the Erdman Hall dormitory.
Marjorie Walter Goodhart Theater The Marjorie Walter Goodhart Theater houses a vaulted
auditorium designed by
Arthur Ingersoll Meigs of
Mellor, Meigs & Howe, two smaller spaces that are ideal for intimate performances by visiting artists, practice rooms for student musicians, and the Office for the Arts. The building's towers and
gables,
friezes, carvings and ornamental ironwork, designed by
Samuel Yellin, were done in the
gothic revival style. In the fall of 2009, the college completed a renovation of Goodhart.
Old Library (previously M. Carey Thomas Library and College Hall) Previously named after Bryn Mawr's first Dean and second president, Old Library was used as the primary campus library until 1970, when Mariam Coffin Canaday Library opened. The Great Hall (formerly the reading room of the library) was designed by Walter Cope (of
Cope and Stewardson) in 1901 and built by Stewardson and Jamieson several years later, although
M. Carey Thomas played a large part in its construction. Today, it is a space for performances, readings, lectures, and public gatherings. Old Library encloses a large open courtyard called "The Cloisters". The cremated remains of M. Carey Thomas and
Emmy Noether are located in the Cloisters.
Georgiana Goddard King is also buried in the cloister. The building was declared a
National Historic Landmark in 1991. The Great Hall was once the home of an
Athena Lemnia statue (damaged in 1997) that is now located in a high alcove in the Rhys Carpenter Art and Archaeology Library. A plaster cast of that Athena now stands in her place at the Great Hall. Students often leave offerings to this statue in the hope that she will intervene on their behalf. In 2018, the board of trustees formalized the use of the name "The Old Library". Old Library was formerly known as "Thomas Hall" after Bryn Mawr's second president, M. Carey Thomas. The building was informally known as "College Hall" for a year before being officially renamed to "Old Library" in 2018. This renaming was in response to student protests, which claimed that many of M. Carey Thomas's views did not represent the values of the college. Student protesters identified that M. Carey Thomas was a virulent eugenicist, antisemite and racist who strongly opposed the admission of students who were not elite white women. Today, the building houses a plaque explaining the controversy of the former name and affirming the college's current dedication to equity and inclusion, which was unveiled during the 2019 Community Day of Learning.
Rhys Carpenter Art and Archaeology Library Named for Bryn Mawr's late professor of Classical Archaeology, the Rhys Carpenter Library was designed by Henry Myerberg of New York and opened in 1997. The space is connected to the rear of Old Library. The entrance is a four-story atrium. Names of art and archaeology faculty are displayed on the main wall of the atrium, along with a series of plaster casts of the metopes of the
Parthenon. The roof comprises a wide grassy area used for outdoor concerts and picnics. The building won a 2001 Award of Excellence for Library Architecture from the Library Administration and Management Association and the American Institute of Architects. Carpenter Library also houses the college's renowned collections in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, History of Art, and Classics.
The Deanery The
Bryn Mawr College Deanery was the campus residence of the first Dean and second President of Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas, who maintained a home there from 1885 to 1933. Under the direction of Thomas, the Deanery was gradually enlarged and elaborately decorated with the assistance of the American artist
Lockwood de Forest and furnished with art from Thomas' world travels. From 1933 until 1968, the Deanery served as the Alumnae Center and Inn for the college. The building was demolished in the spring of 1968 to make space for the construction of Canaday Library, which stands on the site today. At the time of its demolition, many of the Deanery's furnishings were re-located to Wyndham, an 18th-century farmhouse (with several modern additions) which became the college's new Alumnae Center. == Academics ==