A dramatic nighttime photo of Mudd Hall (ca. 1930) from the USC Digital Library is featured on the cover of the latest USC campus directory. Jon Vidar's photo of the interior of Hoose Library of Philosophy appears on the back cover of the directory. The original Mudd Hall photograph can be found in the University Archives, which is part of Special Collections. You can learn more about the University Archives in Claude Zachary's helpful LibGuide.
Designed by Ralph Carlin Flewelling and constructed at a cost of an estimated $300,000, the Seely Wintersmith Mudd Hall of Philosophy was dedicated on June 5, 1930. Mudd Hall is primarily pre-Renaissance Tuscan in design, although it combines Romanesque, Byzantine, and Middle Eastern decorative elements. Trimmed in cast stone, the structure is roofed in tile and built around three sides of a courtyard featuring a central fountain. At the junction of the north and west wings, a clock tower soars 146 feet above the ground. Mudd Hall originally housed three classrooms, a Philosophy club room (the Argonauts' Hall), a large lecture room (the Borden Parker Bowne Hall), and faculty offices, as well as a library, rare book room, and book bindery.