Homewood Campus Tour

Rowland Hall was built in 1929 for the physics department, allowing it to move out of its cramped quarters in the attic of Maryland Hall. Built in just nine months, the building was named after Henry A. Rowland, the first professor of physics at Johns Hopkins. Rowland did important work in electrodynamics, and was awarded the Venetian prize for his efforts in establishing the mechanical equivalent of heat. His greatest contributions, however, were made in the field of spectroscopy. He perfected an engine for ruling diffraction gratings, and was soon supplying them to scientists all over the world. Using one his gratings, he made a map of the solar spectrum which remained the world standard for 30 years. When it was revised by the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1928 (using a Rowland Grating), the largest correction amounted to one part in 30,000.

Rowland's experimental career was cut short when, shortly after he married at age 42, he discovered he had diabetes, which was then untreatable. In an attempt to provide for his family, he spent the rest of his life concentrating on applied science, developing a multi-channel telegraph and working as a consultant to power companies.

An addition connecting the building to Maryland Hall was constructed in 1964. In 1990, Rowland Hall was renamed for Zanvyl Krieger (AB 1928), who provided a large donation to renovate the building for the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, after the Physics Department moved to the Bloomberg Center. Besides the Mind/Brain Institute, Krieger Hall also houses the Departments of Mathematics and Cognitive Science and the Language Teaching Center.

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