Cope & Stewardson

Cope & Stewardson, established in 1885, was one of the most important scholastic architecture firms in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, and are particularly known for their work in Collegiate Gothic mode. Founders Walter Cope (1860-1902) and John Stewardson (1858-1896) used their prominent Quaker family connections to get their earliest important commissions at Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges in 1886, but their talent soon brought them to the attention of many other institutional and private clients in Philadelphia and beyond. Their work at the University of Pennsylvania was a watershed in the work of the firm and in the West Philadelphia campus of the school: they were hired by Provost Charles Custis Harrison to create a residential campus that would engender a vital undergraduate experience, using the Oxbridge model as inspiration. Their first work at Penn, the Dormitory Quadrangle (begun 1894) was followed by a series of buildings that set the architectural palette for the campus. Their important campus work also included Washington University in St. Louis (begun 1899). After John Stewardson drowned in a skating accident in 1896 and Walter Cope succumbed to a stroke in 1902, the office's original name was continued by Emlyn Stewardson, John's brother, who had joined the firm in 1887. In 1912 George B. Page was made a partner in Stewardson & Page. This firm continued with a significant practice until 1936.