VCU Egyptian Building (Richmond, Virginia)

 NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1840s construction, historic landmark, educational building, Egyptian Revival (architecture), U.S. National Historic Landmark

Designed by noted Greek Revival architect Thomas S. Stewart of Philadelphia, the Egyptian Building is one of the finest examples of the rare “Egyptian Revival” style. The building was the first permanent home of the Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College, which later became the Medical College of Virginia. The Egyptian Building has been in continuous use since its construction in 1845 and remains the oldest medical college building in the South. While the interior has since been extensively altered to accommodate administrative office space (with the notable exception of the 1930s lobby and ground floor lecture hall), the monumental exterior is extremely well preserved. The building once housed lecture rooms, a dissecting room, an infirmary, and hospital beds for medical and surgical cases.

The exotic exterior of the building presents a stately, fortress-like mass, and its battered walls, which taper from the bottom to the top, reinforce the impression of solidity and weight. The temple-form building has nearly identical facades at both ends, with corner pylons framing the porticoes with their pairs of colossal palm capital columns. Sloping pylons also encase the window bays on the long sides of the building. Other notable architectural features include the diamond-paned windows, columns of bunched reeds with palm leaf capitals, and a cast iron fence forged by R. W. Barnes of Richmond. The exterior ornament depicts the disc of the sun goddess, with the disc representing eternity, the serpent representing wisdom, and the wings representing spirit.