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The Egyptian Building

The Egyptian Building
East Marshall and College Streets

This building is not going to be torn down. It is on the National Register. So fooey on the university developers who want to turn everything into parking decks.

The Egyptian Building, of the mummified fence posts, was constructed in 1845 to house what is now the Medical College of Virginia. Unsurprisingly, this Egyptian Revival style never really took off. This building is one of the few examples of this type of architecture. It looks really cool, but I can't imagine what it must have been like in 1845. In Virginia. In the summer. With no air conditioning and not too many windows. Presumably the medical students were doing medical student stuff with dead bodies and didn't bathe regularly either, so it must have been pretty ripe in there. I've been in residential buildings constructed about this time and they incorporated many features to help people get through the summers, like ten foot high windows and lots of cross ventilation to keep the air moving on through. I think that the Masons (Of course they were Masons!) got a little too excited when they designed the Egyptian Building.

Different sources refer to the capitals as lotus buds, or palm leaves, but I think they're really papyrus. The winged disk of Horus is all over the place too.

The interior is "Egyptian" too, but this only dates to the renovation that was done back in 1939. This picture was taken through the door with a long exposure. I'm planning to infiltrate that auditorium at some point to see what the architectural designers did in there. Out in the entryway, the floor has a giant scarab inlaid in the tiles (that picture didn't come out at all). The glimpse of the coffered ceiling is pretty tantalizing too. How can I resist going back for more?

313 words | March 13, 2005 10:46 PM | Shutterbug