Ralph Adams Cram

Ralph Adams Cram, circa 1890

Ralph Adams Cram, (December 16, 1863 - September 22, 1942), was an important American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the gothic style. His work is represented on a number of campuses, including Cornell University, Sweet Briar College, University of Richmond, Williams College, Rice University, Wheaton College in Massachusetts, the United States Military Academy, and St. George's School, but he is most closely associated with Princeton, where he served as Consulting Architect from 1907 to 1929.

From 1898-1914, Cram was in partnership with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in the Boston firm then known as Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson.

Born at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire into a Unitarian clerical family, in his youth Cram called himself an agnostic. But during a Christmas Eve mass in Rome in 1887, he had a dramatic conversion experience. For the rest of his life, he remained a fervent Anglo-Catholic who self-identified as High Church Anglican.

As author and lecturer as well as architect, Cram propounded the view that the Renaissance had been, at least in part, an unfortunate detour for western culture. Cram argued that authentic development could come only by returning to Gothic sources for inspiration, as his "Collegiate Gothic" architecture did, with considerable success.

Cover of Time Magazine (December 13, 1926)

Hunt Memorial Library in c. 1906, Nashua, New Hampshire

Cram's churches include:

• Boston, Massachusetts

All Saints Church, Ashmont

Church of the Advent (Lady Chapel)

• Detroit, Michigan

Cathedral Church of St. Paul

• Hamtramck, Michigan

St. Florian Church

• Houston, Texas

Trinity Church

• New York City

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (nave and exterior)

Saint Thomas Church

• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Cathedral of Hope

Calvary Episcopal Church

• Louisville, Kentucky

Concordia Lutheran Church, 1930

• Glens Falls, New York

First Presbyterian Church, 1929

• Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton University Chapel, 1928