Philadelphia Masonic Temple
Philadelphia’s Masonic Temple was erected in 1868-63 by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. The international fraternal organization of Freemasonry claimed roots in the building trade guilds of the Middle Ages, but it was during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that the movement was formally constituted and grew in prominence.
Masons espoused the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality—bywords of the French and American Revolutions of which masons were among the instigators. The first masonic lodge in America was in Philadelphia, and nine signers of the Declaration of Independence were masons, including Franklin and Washington.
After the Revolution, Philadelphia masons continued to be leading supporters of philanthropic and educational work. William Strickland designed their first purpose-built home, a Gothic meeting hall in the 700 block of Chestnut Street (1808-1811), which had been damaged by fire and replaced by 1867, when the lodge conducted a competition for a site on the northeast corner of Center Square. The project was instigated by Grand Master Richard Vaux (1816 –1895) who unsuccessfully ran for mayor four times before being elected in 1856.
The competition was won by the young James Windrim (1840-1919), who later served as the municipal architect and was responsible for many important civic and commercial buildings. He defeated James McArthur and Frank Furness, who would be the architects of the nearby City Hall and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, respectively.
Windrim’s design is a bravura demonstration of High Victorian eclecticism, with picturesque, multi-towered granite façades that are detailed in a robust Romanesque (or Norman) vocabulary. The decoration of the interior provides is an encyclopedia of architectural history, largely the work of the German-born and trained George Herzog (1851-1920), who came to America in 1873. Herzog also provided furnishing for City Hall and the houses of some of Philadelphia’s wealthiest citizens, including Peter A.B. Widner and Albert Disston. Much of his painting and lavish furnishing at the Masonic Temple was completed after the building opened in a great Masonic ceremony on September 26, 1873.
Especially notable are the seven differently themed meeting rooms, in which the Grand Lodge and other Pennsylvania lodges convene. The “Oriental” Hall (1896), with Moorish motifs taken from the Alhambra, is on the ground floor, while the second floor has meeting rooms that are identified as Ionic (1890), Egyptian (1889), Norman (on Rhenish Romanesque, 1891), Corinthian (1903), and Renaissance (1908). The Gothic Hall, on the third floor, is reserved for the Knights Templar, a masonic order that took its name from the crusader fraternity of the Middle Ages.
NHL nomination 1984