Marsh Chapel

Marsh Chapel, at 735 Commonwealth Ave., cost $1 million to build between 1939 and 1948 and forms the architectural center of the Charles River Campus.

Daniel Marsh was a Methodist minister who graduated from the BU School of Theology in 1908 and was the University's president from 1926 to 1950. He oversaw the beginnings of BU's consolidation on the Charles River Campus.

The foundation of the chapel contains stones from Jesus College and St. John's College, both at England's Oxford University.

In 1950, Boston University dedicated Marsh Chapel, constructed at the center of the new Charles River Campus to demonstrate "the centrality" of religion to education, to quote Daniel Marsh, then University president. President Marsh, like all his Boston University predecessors, was an ordained Methodist minister, and the University's ties to Methodism were clearly reflected in its ceremonies and outlook. Nevertheless, the inscription welcoming visitors to the chapel does not mention Jesus, and no cross was included in the sanctuary's ornamentation.