Early Life and Education

The front side of a church with a large tower in the middle. Above the double wooden doors is a large, round rose window. The tower tapers in tiers as it rises, ending with a steep pitcher roof topped by a cross. Two smaller side towers are decorated in a similar manner, with gothic ornament such as pointed arches and gargoyles. The entire façade is rendered with think black ink lines and covered in a brown ink wash.

Raymond Hood, 1881–1934
A Design for a Parish Church in the Gothic Style, elevation, 1903
Ink and watercolor on paper
64½" × 23½"
MIT Museum

Hood’s opportunities to study architecture were limited at Brown, so he transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899.

Since its founding in the 1860s, the Department of Architecture at MIT—the oldest of its kind in the United States—came increasingly under the influence of the Parisian École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts). The method of education placed a strong emphasis on producing meticulously rendered architectural drawings.

Hood’s thesis drawing exemplifies the quality of draftsmanship expected of the students.