Posted on June 6, 2025
Post categories: Architecture In the Media News Students
A recent Seattle Times feature revisits the long journey of four cedar columns — architectural remnants from the University of Washington’s original 1861 building — and the thoughtful student design that gave them a lasting home.
After the original downtown campus was vacated and the building demolished in 1910, the columns were relocated to the expanding new campus. For a decade, they stood unceremoniously near Savery Hall until a student competition sought a more fitting setting. The winning design came from Marshall Gill, a 19-year-old architecture student.
Gill proposed placing the columns in a wooded clearing, creating the open-air space now known as the Sylvan Grove Theater. Though he died just a year later, Gill’s design became a lasting part of the campus landscape — a quiet, enduring tribute to his talent and a life cut short. A memorial bench beside the columns honors his contribution.
This story offers a glimpse into how students — even in the earliest decades of the architecture program — shaped the visual and cultural legacy of the UW campus.