Emory Campus Master Plan: History

Emory Moves to Atlanta

The foundation of Emory University was an outgrowth of the controversy over the relationship between Vanderbilt University and the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1914, a decision of the Supreme Court of Tennessee ruled in favor of severing the ties between Vanderbilt University and the Methodist Episcopal Church. This decision left the Bishops of the church in a quandary since Vanderbilt has originally been planned as the "Central University" and the loss of Vanderbilt meant a forfeiture of an institution designed to maintain a Department of Theology and a school of Biblical study.

Immediately the General Conference of the church began a process of studying potential sites for a university to address their needs. By July of 1914, Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce had pledged $500,000 if the university were to locate in their city. At the same time, certain guarantees were made that a suitable tract of land would be made available to the university should the Bishops decide to locate the institution in Atlanta. Asa Griggs Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola Company and the brother of Bishop Warren Akin Candler, Chairman of the Educational Commission, stepped forward and offered the sum of one million dollars toward the endowment of the institution. In August of 1914, the trustees of Emory College approved the plan for the new university and suggested the name Emory University.

Druid Hills

The parcel of land selected for the location of the new university was adjacent to a suburb of Atlanta known as Druid Hills. Originally conceived of as a parkway suburb, Druid Hills was part of a larger development enterprise conceived of by developer Joel Hurt. Hurt, who also was the developer of the Equitable Building and the Inman Park (1887) suburb, had planned a comprehensive commuting pattern based upon his Atlanta and Edgewood Street Railway Company (1888). As early as 1892 Hurt had hired the dean of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, to work on his suburban development schemes. Later, the Olmsted firm under the direction of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was to advance the design of Hurt's suburban ambitions. The Druid Hills suburb was conceived of as a picturesque composition that integrated the practical concerns of automobile movement with aesthetic and environmental factors. In 1900, Hurt was unable to raise capital for the development and the land was sold to a consortium that included Asa Griggs Candler. The parcel, known as the "Guess Place," was originally comprised of seventy-five acres of wooded land.

An Architect is Chosen

In March of 1915, a building committee had been established and was, "instructed and empowered to have a plan made for campus buildings at the earliest movement which the Committee may deem expedient. . . and to proceed with the erection of one or more." (English, p. 20) Henry Hornbostel (1867-1961), a distinguished architect from Pittsburgh who had been previously engaged by the Coca-Cola Company, was entrusted with the design of the campus plan. Hornbostel had established himself as an architect of the highest caliber in campus design and collegiate buildings, first with the plan of the Carnegie Technical Schools (now Carnegie-Mellon University), in 1900, later by winning the national competition for the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh), in 1908, and finally in his schemes for Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois (1914). Hornbostel was a graduate of Columbia University (1891) and had studied extensively in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts. Hornbostel was known as a very quick thinker and designer: "He is a man who can in a brief time accomplish an enormous amount of work, and there are probably few in his profession who can draw so rapidly once he has set himself to the task." (The Brickbuilder, January 1915, p. 26) Since speed was of essence in the design of the new university, Emory had probably selected the right architect for the job.

Master Plan for Carnegie Mellon University

Master Plan for Carnegie Mellon University