King's Crown (symbol)

The University Crown

The Columbia Crown is a common symbol associated with the school. As a symbol, the crown has undergone a number of transformations and adaptations over the years. Recently, the university appears to have adopted the crown as its primary symbolic image, giving it precedence over the seal and shield in branding.

The Crown of King's College

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Sketch of the copper crown design appearing in Frederick Keppel's Columbia(1914)

1754/Columbia College crown

The first Columbia crown was a copper crown on the flagpole of King's College, a visible symbol of King's royal charter. Today, that crown hangs over the fireplace in the Trustees Room of Low Library, above the portrait of Samuel Johnson and the cornerstone of College Hall. A sketch of the crown graces the copyright page of the 1904 sesquicentennial history of the school, "Columbia University: A History", titled perhaps erroneously, as the "Iron Crown of King's College."

The King's College Crown does not appear to correspond exactly with any of the present Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. The closest match would be St. Edward's Crown, which would make sense since, as it was crafted in 1661 and would have been worn by George II at the time of the founding of King's College. However, the Columbia crown is notably missing the fleur de lis present in all British royal insignia since the Norman conquest.

The KC crown was the inspiration for adopting the crown as a symbol of the university, and has since been replicated in various forms around the Morningside Heights campus. Outdoor instances of the KC crown design can be seen atop the flagpole southeast of Low Library that flies the University flag, and the 116th Street gates at both Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, atop the rotunda in Van Am Quad, atop Alma Mater's scepter, and sculpted in relief on the back of her seat, just above an image of the university seal. You can also find the KC crown around Hamilton Hall: carved into the foundation to the east and west of the entrance, depicted in stone above the doors, and depicted inside the building on the molding that wraps around the lobby. Similarly, a stone crown sits atop the entrance of John Jay Hall, Hartley Hall, Wallach Hall, and Furnald Hall. Additionally, depictions of the KC crown design are prominent inside Butler Library, where it sits atop the gates on either side of the vestibule, and can be seen in the molding running along the ceiling of Butler Lounge, and the Reading Room (209).

The distinguishable characteristics of depictions of the KC crown include its shape (which differs from the butterfly shape of the modernized crown), and studding either along the outside of the crown or along its bands.

Today, only one direct descendant of the KC crown design is in regular use, and that is the Columbia College crown, so called because of its use by and association with the College. When the College uses the crown, the date '1754' usually appears just underneath it in reference to the College's founding, which has lead some to call it the '1754 Crown.' It also serves as part of the Columbia Spectator's logo.

Another derivative of the KC crown design is the 'relief crown', depicting the crown at a slight angle, giving the image depth. The 'relief design' could primarily be seen on the Columbia Shield, but in recent years the shield has been depicted almost exclusively with variations of the modern butterfly crown designs.

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  "Iron Crown of King's College"

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  The crown atop the 116th Street Gates

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  A crown carved into the foundation of Hamilton Hall

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  A design based on the KC crown used on the rarely seen Hamilton Hall gates

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  The Columbia University Club of New York seal

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  The 'relief' crown

The Post-War Crown

Post-war Crown Design

At some point in the mid-20th century, no later than 1946, Columbia began using a new sleek and modern depiction of the old KC crown. Though the shape and design were clearly based on the old crown, the crown was now flat and unornamented.

This design is not particularly visible around campus in its original form except at Teachers College, which has retained it to this day as its version of the crown logo. It can be seen on the cover pages of Horace Coon's "Columbia: Colossus on the Hudson (1947), the book "Columbia Remembered" (1967), and on the south face of the water tower housing atop the apartment building and offices Columbia built on the corner of Riverside Drive and St. Clair Place (560 Riverside Drive- it's best visible from Riverside Drive going North).

The post-war design's most conspicuous and lasting legacy has been its incorporation into the SEAS Crown logo.

The crown that adorns the lapel of graduation robes appears to be a close match, though not an exact copy, a derivative of this partiular design, as it's smooth and unornamented.

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  SEAS crown

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  Teachers College logo

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  Crown on the lapel of Graduation robes

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  Crown atop 560 Riverside Drive

The 'Butterfly' Crowns

At some recent point, probably within the last 20 years, Columbia decided to scrap the post-war design and revert back to a crown more faithful to the KC crown, but with a twist. The studs were re-added along the outside, and on the inside the studs became 'cut-outs', like on the Columbia College crown, but more numerous. In a departure from previous designs, the new crown featured a new shape, resembling a butterfly. The butterfly shape has been the basis of all recent crown derivations. Over time the design featured variations on the use of outer studding and inner cut-outs depending on usage.

At some point presumably in the early 2000s, the Columbia University Medical Center, known then as Health Sciences, developed a new crown design, possibly as part of its re-branding as the Medical Center. The design was stripped of all ornamentation, sleek, and in a radical departure from over a century of precedent, without crosses. Instead the crown featured 'secularized' spades. The new spaded design apparently was adopted by the central university, which featured the design on its newly designed website in 2004, replacing the university seal which had figured prominently in the old design, and also in other not-so-subtle ways (the rain mat in the entrance of Low Library for example). A number of individual schools adopted the new design including the School of Social Work and the Law School, which junked the Columbia Shield and its own logo to do so.

However, the radical departure from history drew notice. After taking feedback into account, whoever is in charge of such things had the spades replaced with crosses on the new design, and rolled out the modified design as the new University crown.

The evolution of the design can be seen in the confusion of the various designs usages across campus. The original studded cut-out butterfly design was used on CUIDs in the late 1990s, and can still be seen on the University flag on stage in the Low Library Rotunda. The butterfly crown with cut-outs but without outside studding has become the primary version of the crown used on the Columbia Shield on merchandise sold in the Columbia Bookstore, having largely displaced the 'relief crown' since 2003. Meanwhile, the flag flying on the Class of 1881 flagpole is the new butterfly crown with crosses and while the University has adopted the butterfly crown with crosses as its logo, Student Services has chosen to keep the crown with spades instead.

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  Cut-out butterfly crown without studding

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  Spaded butterfly crown

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  Crossed butterfly crown

Design Confusion

All the design changes, especially in recent years, has resulted in almost complete inconsistency in crown usage. This is nowhere more obvious than in the school merchandise section of the book store. All three butterfly crowns and the Columbia College crown are used on merchandise almost indiscriminately and interchangeably. This has had the greatest impact on usage of the Columbia Shield, which appears throughout the store with various different crowns inside. An excellent contrast of the lack of consistency is the diploma frame section. Diploma frames that come with the Columbia Shield embossed on the frame matting feature the relief crown on the shield, whereas frames with an embedded 'medallion' with the Columbia Shield on it feature the butterfly crown with cut-outs.

This lack of precision in crown usage spills over to student usage of the crowns in designing student group logos and flyers, where any crown they can find a suitable JPG of is used.

Additional Adaptations

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  Crown on the CC Dean's office door, and also affixed to various plaques in Hamilton Hall. It's a copy of the crown carved in stone above the door.

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  The Columbia Society of Automotive Engineers crown