Finney Memorial Chapel

Date

1908-present

Location

90 North Professor Street

Architects/Collaborators

Cass Gilbert (1859-1934), New York City (architect)
George Feick, Sandusky (contractor)

Style

Romanesque with Renaissance Revival elements

History

In 1903 College president Henry Churchill King approached Frederick Norton Finney, former President Charles Grandison Finney’s son, about construction of a new chapel to honor the former, illustrious president. F.N. Finney responded favorably to the idea of the chapel and suggested two architects, Charles Follen McKim and Cass Gilbert. King selected Gilbert, and disagreements quickly developed between Finney and Gilbert, and King became the mediator. The architect struggled with the effort to find the correct blend of the College’s restrained austerity and the environment created by Peters Hall, Carnegie Library and Warner Gymnasium. He settled on an interpretation of the Romanesque of Southern France.

The chapel was built on the site of President Finney’s former home at Lorain and Professor Street. It was dedicated June 21, 1908, with a seating capacity of 1,960, as part of the seventy-fifth anniversary. Gilbert’s vision for the interior, however, was not realized as the College was unwilling to expend funds to achieve his aesthetic goals. In 1982, architect William Blunden, using a Gilbert drawing, guided a renovation of the chapel and the interior colors that brought the space closer to Cass Gilbert’s original intention. The original Skinner organ was extensively rebuilt by Aeolian-Skinner in the early 1950s and then sold to Truro Episcopal Church of Fairfax, Virginia in 1999 with the arrival of the new C.B Fisk Opus 116. The Fisk organ, whose installation was completed in 2001, was  partially financed by a bequest by Kay Africa plus gifts from others including Richard Connelley ’50 and the Phoebe Haas Foundation.

Finney Memorial Chapel was listed on the National Register as part of the Oberlin College thematic nomination in 1978. It was listed by the City of Oberlin as an Oberlin Historic Landmark in November 1997.

For other College buildings designed by Cass Gilbert, see the Allen Memorial Hospital, Allen Memorial Art Building, Bosworth Hall, and the Cox Administration Building.

Sources

Geoffrey Blodgett, Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to Its Social History (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1985, 16-17.

Ohio Historic Inventory for Finney Memorial Chapel by M. Fedelchak Harley, L. Previll, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, 10/14/2000, accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, May 26, 2015.