Gallaudet University Named Location of the Month by the D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development

Press release issued from The D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development on February 1, 2012:

The D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development is pleased to honor Gallaudet University in Northeast as the February 2012 One City Location of the Month. Gallaudet University is recognized as the world’s only university in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students. The University is also known for its historical Victorian Gothic and Queen Ann Style architecture that adorns the beautiful 99 acre campus.

Gallaudet University, federally chartered in 1864, is a bilingual, diverse, multicultural institution of higher education named for Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, one of the founders of the first school for deaf students in the United States. It houses College Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus, which was built in the polychrome High Victorian Gothic Revival architecture and features vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows.

“We are very pleased to be featured as the Location of the Month by the D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development,” said Gallaudet University President T. Alan Hurwitz. “Gallaudet University has both historic and modern buildings with impressive architecture that would serve as a great backdrop for movies and television shows. We fully welcome this opportunity.”

Another notable building is Chapel Hall, which is a National Historic Landmark Building. Atop the building is the Tower Clock, a campus landmark. Built in 1870, Chapel Hall has served as a chapel, auditorium, exhibit center, and dining hall. The National Park Service describes the building as “one of the finest examples of post-Civil War collegiate architecture in the United States and is the focal point of the college. [It is] a picturesque, brown-stone, High Victorian Gothic in the Ruskinian Gothic Revival Style which was popular in the 1870s.”

The Peikoff Alumni House, also known as “Ole Jim” was built in 1881 and served as the first gymnasium on campus. It housed one of the nation’s first indoor swimming pools. The architecture was inspired by Queen Anne style of northern European architecture, characterized by the use of brick on the first floor, wood floors on the second floor, and a steeply pitched shingle roof with a large overhang.

The open field in the center of campus is called Olmsted Green. It was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1866. Olmsted and his partner also designed Central Park in New York City and the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.

The Edward Miner Gallaudet Residence is affectionately known on the Gallaudet University campus as “House One.” The EMG Residence is a 35-room Victorian Gothic mansion built in 1869 and named for Gallaudet University’s founder and first president, Edward Miner Gallaudet. The residence has housed all ten of the sitting university presidents and their families. It was named to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1974.

One of the newest buildings on campus, the James Lee Sorenson Language and Communication Center (SLCC), is the first building in the university’s history to be designed by and for deaf people, through the use of architectural principals known as DeafSpace. Completed in 2008, the DeafSpace concepts seen in SLCC include open common areas, neutral lighting, many windows, a glass elevator, a sliding entrance door, and rounded corners. Each of these design elements assist in making SLCC “visual-centric” for deaf and hard of hearing people.

In 2011, the D.C. Film Office launched its One City Location of the Month to bring attention to the wide range of varied, cinematically compelling locations that are available to film and television productions. Former One City Location of the Month recipients include the Frederick Douglass House in Southeast, the Atlas Theatre in Northeast, the Adams Morgan neighborhood in the Arts in Northwest, and Arena Stage in Southwest.