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Project: Hodson House, St. John’s College,
60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD
Architects: Dynerman Architects pc
Landscape Architects: Nelson Byrd Woltz
Structural Engineers: Structura
MEP Engineers: James Posey Associates
Contractor: Brown Contracting Company

Entry to Hodson House at
St. John’s College in Annapolis.

An Architectural
An Architectural

Conversation
Conversation All photos © Paul Burk

Hodson House Captures

the Spirit of St. John’s College

by Holly Feldman-Wiencek

Hodson House, the newest building on the historic St. stuck in the past. Despite its historical setting and classical
John’s College campus in Annapolis, Maryland, is a scholarly foundation, St. John’s wishes to instill in its
seemingly modest structure that is almost domestic in scale. students the ability to think critically and use that thinking
It is a surprisingly rich work of architecture, however, to advance knowledge. As the college’s website states,
that can be regarded as a built expression of the college’s “Inspired by some of the most brilliant minds in Western
unique pedagogy. Moreover, the design process behind tradition, students push themselves to think deeply, discuss
the project embodied the ways in which St. John’s students intensely, and live boldly—and then carry that passion
learn about the world. into the world.”
To truly understand Hodson House, one must first Students follow a prescribed four-year curriculum
understand St. John’s. The small college is the third oldest and attend all the same classes as their peers. There are no
in the country—older, in fact, than the country itself. It majors. At the core of St. John’s pedagogy is conversation,
was founded in 1696 as the King William’s School in which takes the form of the seminar. Students meet in
Annapolis, which itself was founded in 1649 (a second small groups twice a week to examine and discuss the
campus, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, opened in 1964). The great texts. St. John’s states that the seminar develops
Annapolis campus, which accommodates fewer than 500 attentive reading, clarity of thought, and encourages
students, exemplifies the Georgian and Federal architecture the exploration of the unfamiliar. Conversations carry
of historic Annapolis. Stately red brick buildings surround beyond the seminar and permeate the campus.
a picturesque green. Though only a few short blocks from Hodson House, similarly, may be viewed as a
downtown, the campus is lined with mature trees that conversation: between historic and modern, student and
distinguish it from the compact yet busy city center. faculty, campus and town. Designed by Dynerman
The college follows a “Great Books” curriculum Architects and conceived during a comprehensive master
rooted in the intensive study of the most important books planning process completed by Dynerman along with
and ideas of Western civilization, going back as far as EE&K Architects (now Perkins Eastman), Hodson House
ancient Greece and Rome. Yet St. John’s is by no means presented an opportunity to introduce a new building that Hodson House forecourt.

46 AN ARCHITECTURAL CONVERSATION