herr2ck: The Dullard

January 2025.

It’s in the name…Dulles Hall is a pretty dull building. For whatever reason, the thing looks like a citadel with the crazy punched windows, which is odd considering it was built as an office building. Dulles Hall is located on north campus, bordered by the Mathematics Building and Tower to the north, Annie & John Glenn Avenue and University Hall to the south, the green space that was Brown Hall to the east, and Cockins Hall to the west.

Mechanical Laboratory History

Prior to the construction of Dulles Hall, the site was occupied by the Mechanical Laboratory. This building went by many different names, but my sources mainly have it as “Mechanical Laboratory” or its address, 230 West 17th Avenue.

Mechanical Laboratory, prior to 1936. (CML)

The Mechanical Laboratory was designed in 1879 by J. T. Harris in the High Victorian Gothic style. It was built starting that July by John D. Clarke and Michael Fahey, and it was completed by either October or November 1879. The building opened for classes in 1880.

The mechanical engineering program moved to the new Robinson Lab in 1907, and Mechanical Hall became a service building for the university. The Chief Engineer’s office was inside, along with maintenance shops.

Two additions to the building were designed in 1913 and 1914, respectively, by university architect Joseph N. Bradford. They added more square footage to the rear of the building. In 1936, the southern portion of the building (pictured above) was demolished to widen 17th Avenue (now Annie & John Glenn Avenue).

In December 1972, demolition began on the Mechanical Laboratory. It was fully razed by around January 1973.

Dulles Hall History

Dulles Hall was designed in 1972 by C. Curtiss Inscho & Associates as the “University Hall Complex - Office Building.” (UHC includes University Hall, Independence Hall, and Dulles Hall.) Construction began that November by Central Ohio Construction Company, and the building opened in December 1974. With 20,675 square feet of space, Dulles Hall has a steel frame and brick exterior, and it was designed in the Modernist style.

A historic photo of Dulles Hall, undated. (Knowlton Archives)

Dulles Hall was named after Foster Rhea Dulles (1900-1970), who was actually a pretty interesting person and one of the few Ohio State-affiliated people I’ve researched who have their own Wikipedia article. Dulles graduated from Princeton in 1921 with his bachelor’s degree, and he wrote newspaper articles after graduation. He became a professor of history at Ohio State in 1941 and worked until his retirement in 1965, retiring as professor emeritus. Dulles was also the chair of the history department from 1953-1958.

Dulles specialized in political relations between the United States and east Asia, where he spent some time teaching after graduation. He wrote many books on that topic, and his cousins John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were important diplomats and politicians.

Currently, Dulles Hall is the home of the Department of History, as well as the Goldberg Center. At some point, the Museum of Classical Archeology was inside, but it seems to have closed recently.

Photos

Dulles Hall is a rather odd duck, as is its contemporary Independence Hall. The tiny punched windows and intense massing make it look like a Modernist replacement to the old Armory.

How oppressive.

Admittedly, I do enjoy the articulation of the entrance portal (it reminds me of the concentric arches of Romanesque architecture, my favorite style):

I like the pareidolia effect of the two windows over the entrance, it makes a :C face. Also note the bright white expansion joints in the brick--I have no idea why they’re that obvious.

East facade:

This interesting brickwork was confined to the back:

Also while back there, I noticed the building’s base course is done in black brick, which stuck out to me:

This Ohio Historical Marker was on the east lawn, which seems completely unrelated to Dulles Hall.

The interior was so uninteresting that I only got four photos. I feel like most campus buildings have interesting things inside them, even if their architecture is bland, but that wasn’t the case here. The only thing I wanted to see was the history museum, which there was no trace of. Hey, University Hall was designed by the same architects, and its interior was a letdown of the same degree! Plus, the campus history museum inside also recently vanished.

This is the lobby, which seems to have been recently modernized: