William James Hall

William James Hall --A Brief History

William James Hall, at Harvard University, houses the departments of Psychology, Sociology, and Social Studies. The building was designed in 1963 by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center Towers, in NYC. Construction was completed in 1965, when the building opened as a teaching and research facility, known then as the Center for the Behavioral Sciences. The Center was dissolved in the mid-1980s. It’s mission was to bring together and foster collaboration between scientists and educators in the fields of psychology, sociology, and social anthropology, in keeping with the vision of its namesake, William James, a pioneering Harvard psychologist, of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. (The social anthropologists moved out in 2014, following renovations, and are now housed together with the rest of the Anthropology Department in the Tozzer building.) The building stands at 215 feet, comprised of 15 stories (16 1/2 if you count the mezzanine and the penthouse on the roof). More information about William James Hall and the academic work of the departments it houses, can be found on the building website at https://buildingops.wjh.harvard.edu.