American Philosophical Society Hall
Modeled on the royal academies of France and England, the American Philosophical Society, is the oldest “learned society” in the United States. It was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” and in the twenty-first century it continues to bring together leading scholars, scientists, and professionals for interdisciplinary, intellectual fellowship.
The Society had no fixed home until the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania assigned it a site on the eastern side of Independence Square in 1785. The construction of a new building for the library and meeting rooms proceeded slowly, under the general direction of a committee chaired by Samuel Vaughan but probably shaped chiefly by the builders William Roberts and David Evans. Completed in 1789, Philosophical Hall is a modest two-story house-like structure, symmetrically organized and with central doors facing both Fifth Street and the square. The architectural vocabulary was new, however; it was the first public building with the restrained ornament and delicate fanlights of the Federal style.
The APS rented space to other notable institutions, including Charles Wilson Peale’s museum, which opened in the building in 1794 and remained here until moving to Independence Hall. The painter Thomas Sully later made his home and studio in Philosophical Hall, followed by the Athenaeum, which rented space until moving to its own building in 1847.
The growth of the Society’s library and other collections required the addition of a third floor in 1890, which was designed by the Wilson Brothers, the famous engineering firm that built the train sheds at the stations of both the Reading and Pennsylvania Railroads. In 1958-1959 this rather unsympathetic alteration was removed and the space more than replaced by the construction of “Library Hall” on the other side of Fifth Street. This is a replica of the 1789-1790 home of the Library Company, another of Franklin’s institutional progeny.