Board of Education Building (Philadelphia)

Board of Education Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	21st St. and Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Coordinates	39°57′32″N 75°10′32″W / 39.95889°N 75.17556°WCoordinates: 39°57′32″N 75°10′32″W / 39.95889°N 75.17556°W
Area	less than one acre
Built	1930
Architect	Irwin T. Catharine; Jules A. Melidon
Architectural style	Classical Revival, Moderne, Neo-Classical
NRHP Reference #	83002266[1]
Added to NRHP	August 25, 1983

The Board of Education Building, also known as the Board of Education Administration Building, is a historic building in the Logan Square neighborhood of Philadelphia. As the long-time headquarters of what is now the School District of Philadelphia, it was a center of the city's educational system. It was completed in 1932. In recent years, it has been converted to residential use.

The Board of Education Building was added in 1983 to the National Register of Historic Places.^[1]

Design

The building's design was selected by jury. Its style is a combination of Art Deco and Classical Revival, commonly known as Moderne . It was part of an early revitalization scheme for the city that resulted in the building of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Bas relief sculptures on educational themes are incorporated into the building. These were first sketched by the architect Irwin T. Catharine, then executed in plaster by Jules Melidon, before being sculpted by the stone cutters. Melidon reportedly was in Europe while they were being sculpted and installed, and sued Catharine and the Board of Education upon his return.^[2]

The four columns on each side of the central tower are topped by busts of great thinkers, educators, and statesmen:

• North side: Daniel Webster, Benjamin Franklin, Thaddeus Stevens, William Shakespeare
• South side: Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Marshall
• East side: Robert Fulton, Russell Conwell, Horace Mann, William Penn
• West side: Isaac Newton, George Washington, Bayard Taylor, Stephen Girard

Gallery

• 

  View from southeast

• 

  North elevation and main entrance

• 

  View from southwest

• 

  View from across the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, showing the building in context between the Franklin Institute and the Cira Centre

• 

  Main entrance

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  21st Street entrance

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  The designation of this door onto Spring Street a "service entrance" is quite literally carved in stone.

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  Interior hallway

References

1. National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
2. Bartley, Theodore T. (1983). "Board of Education Building" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Retrieved January 8, 2014.

External links

• Listing and photographs at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
• 2100 Parkway Apartments