Austin Hall presents itself at the nexus of three very different kinds of Revolutions- industrial, educational, and architectural. Each is mutually reinforcing with the other, and each can be seen as forming a key part of the motivation for many of the artistic decisions H.H. Richardson and his team made in designing and executing the work.
The industrial aspect is well-known. The latter half of the 19th Century saw the victorious northern half of the United States rising out of the ashes of the Civil War and developing extensive mass production, construction, and via the railroad and telegraph, connection capabilities. No era, it could be argued, did more to bring the country closer to being recognizable to us today than did the Industrial Revolution. Attendant to this moment of transition was a decided accumulation of wealth alongside the continually increasing influx of immigrants hoping to take their first steps towards it. As a result, class divisions based in nationality and number of generations in the country comprise a key part of Austin Hall's story. Though the laborers who constructed it likely hailed from the city of Boston's vast Irish, Italian, and African American populations, these less well-off individuals would never in their lifetime get to take part in using, enjoying, and benefiting from the education and studies that were housed within its walls. Those who built Austin could not partake in its opportunities.
Similarly, the educational revolution underway in the United States and also in Western Europe reflected class lines. While trade schools and apprenticeships were often seen as the domain of the laborer classes, the twin concepts of professional education and the liberal arts university as we now know it arose at the same time. Austin was a manifestation of this transformation as well, with the very classes that had once been relegated to professional education left unable to take part in its elite incarnation at places like the Harvard Law School. This expansion, for which Austin Hall was built, again was reserved for the descendants of New England's boldface names.
Finally, the architecture itself of Austin can now be seen to represent something of a transformation, although one that touched and could be enjoyed by all classes. The Richardsonian Romanesque approach involved a synthesis of classical, Old World ideas with New World variations and Richardson's own modifications. The variety of buildings Richardson's style would touch- from public libraries to churches, from train stations to an insane asylum, make for a welcome break from the class-divisive Industrial and educational Revolutions. Even if not all his buildings were inhabited by organizations that were open to all, certainly people of all backgrounds could appreciate, observe, and find some way of incorporating this new aesthetic into their experience.
