Glorious Gasson
Artist: Molly Bruns
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Bruns seeks out the beauty in life around her, even when walking through campus. During a clear, sunny, snowy winter day, when trying to appreciate every detail on BC’s historic campus, Bruns took to BC’s architectural pride and joy for inspiration: Gasson Hall.
Already Brun’s favorite building, Gasson is captured in all of its beauty in “Glorious Gasson,” her three-part photograph series. Bruns emphasizes hard to spot details that combine to form the captivating heart of the heights.
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Molly Bruns is part of the Class of 2024. She majors in Marketing, with a minor in Hispanic Studies and Environmental Studies. In addition to being an artist, Bruns is part of The Heights student newspaper.
“Glorious Gasson”
Digital Photography
February 26, 2022
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Gasson Hall is a Gothic-style academic building at the center of Boston College’s campus, known to all students by its towering height and to all visitors by Gasson’s common feature on BC postcards. Gasson is modeled after an outdoor cathedral, and the building inspired the development of North American collegiate Gothic architecture. Gasson is perfectly symmetrical, with both corners of the buildings extended upwards by their pointed roofs. A rectangular bell tower marks the middle of this building and the highest point on Chestnut Hill, which Bruns closely examines in this photograph.
When walking through campus, it is almost impossible to zoom in on the details of Gasson Hall. Bruns does just this by situating the bell tower with the point of the left-most corner of Gasson. The late-afternoon winter sun grazes the right sides of the building and emphasis all of Gasson’s details. Bruns captures everything: the set-back buttresses, the sharply pinnacled canopy, the frieze, the narrow galleries of glassless windows, and more. Bruns raises viewers off the sidewalk and 200-feet in the air to get a personal look at BC’s iconic building.
“Our Icy Eagle”
Digital Photography
February 26, 2022
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
A statue of a golden eagle sits atop a dark red granite pillar that lifts the sculpture high into the air. Bruns photographs the top of the granite column so that the eagle appears to be as tall as Gasson Hall, which is behind it. The brown and green copper shingled roof, faux trims made of smooth white rectangular bricks, and loosely-organized grey brick facade of Gasson occupies the midground, with a pale blue winter sky in the background. The tip of the eagle’s left wing and the point of Gasson’s roof horizontally align, dividing the photograph into three sections with perfect symmetry. The eagle—ready to take off into flight at any moment—and pillar he perches on are lightly iced over, with icicles hanging and a frozen sheen over the entire statue.
“TickTock”
Digital Photography
February 26, 2022
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
An up-close-and-personal photo of the cast-iron clock on the facade of Gasson Hall. The clock is dark grey, with Bruns capturing a sunbeam that highlights the right side of the clock in gold. The clock floats in between two slim windows outlined by white, rectangular, smooth bricks. The exterior wall of Gasson comprises the background, and the building is made of a puzzle of grey-toned bricks, rough cut and of various sizes and shapes.
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Gasson Hall is one of BC’s most recognizable features, representing all that it means to be an Eagle. BC’s fight song “For Boston” is another inseparable staple of our campus culture. Sing our song loud and proud Eagles!
For Boston, for Boston,
We sing our proud refrain!
For Boston, for Boston,
'Tis Wisdom's earthly fane.
For here all are one
And their hearts are true,
And the towers on the Heights
Reach to Heav'ns own blue.
For Boston, for Boston,
Till the echoes ring again!
For Boston, for Boston,
Thy glory is our own!
For Boston, for Boston,
'Tis here that Truth is known.
And ever with the Right
Shall thy heirs be found,
Till time shall be no more
And thy work is crown'd.
For Boston, for Boston,
For Thee and Thine alone.
Article by: Sindey Amar