King's Crown (symbol)

Columbia's current Crown logo

The King's Crown is a common symbol associated with Columbia. 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. Technically speaking, usage of the crown is regulated by the Secretary of the University, though in reality it's slapped on just about everything by everyone without so much as a second thought.

The Crown of King's College

An early rendition of the Crown, appearing in An Official Guide to Columbia University (1912) on pg. 133

1754/Columbia College crown

Columbia's symbolic association with a crown dates all the way back to the days of King's College, when a copper crown was affixed atop the cupola of College Hall, a visible symbol of the College'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."

On a visit to New York in 1820, Stratford Canning, a British diplomat and future ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, was shown the crown by Professor John McVickar. Canning reportedly commented "You should preserve that crown carefully, sir, for you republicans will by-and-by need a crown."

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.

There is no record of when exactly the crown was first adopted as an official, or even unofficial symbol of the school. Frederick Keppel, the second Dean of Columbia College wrote in his 1914 history of Columbia that the original King's Crown from King's College had served as the inspiration for its adoption as a symbol but provides no further details. A survey of campus architecture provides a rough time line. A visual survey of many of Columbia's early buildings turns up no appearances of the crown in any form (e.g. Low Library's has the seal embedded in the floor, but no crown.) The chronologically first use of the crown on the Morningside Heights campus is on Alma Mater, which was formally installed on campus in 1903. The image of a crown appears in relief above the University Seal on the back of Alma Mater's chair, and her sceptre is also capped by a version of the King's College crown. Three years later in 1906 the crown was explicitly featured on top of the Class of 1881 Flagpole in front of Low Library which is capped with a replica of the original King's College crown. The crown next appears in the lobby of Hamilton Hall, where it appears on a decorative frieze along with a few other symbols, including the cupola of College Hall. Hamilton's cornerstone was laid in 1905 and the building was opened in 1907. By 1912 at the latest an image of a crown, serving as a mark of the school, had begun appearing in various school publications.

Over time the crown's basic design, with some minor variations, began appearing in various forms across campus. Outdoor instances of the crown can be seen atop the flagpole southeast of Low Library that flies the University flag (meant to be a replica of the original King's College Crown), 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 as mentioned above. 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 derived from the original King's College 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 original King's College Crown is in regular use, and that is the Columbia College crown, so called because of its use by and association with the College. It has been in use since at least the early 1910s. 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, and appears in some unexpected locations, e.g. on the entrance to Mudd Hall, where you'd expect to see the SEAS Crown instead.

Another derivative of the original 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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  The Crown of King's College, in the Trustees Room of Low Library

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  "Iron Crown of King's College"

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  The crown atop Alma Mater's Sceptre

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  The crown atop the Class of 1881 Flagpole in front of Low Library, a replica of the original King's College Crown

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  The crown stamped on the back of Alma Mater, the oldest appearance of the Crown on campus

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  The crown atop the 116th Street Gates, based on the flagpole crown

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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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  A crown printed on the cover of the yearbook for at least 1959-1963

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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 an updated 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). However it occasionally shows up unexpectedly in odd places, e.g. the stone marker southwest of the rotunda on Van Am Quad recognizing the Class of 1952's 35th anniversary gift, and the Class of 2002's Class Day program.[1]

Until the spring of 2008 the post-war design's most conspicuous and lasting legacy was its incorporation into the SEAS crown logo. Since 2008 SEAS has adopted an updated crown, replacing the post-war crown with the current butterfly shaped crown with crosses.

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

In the mid to late 90's a cleaned up modern version of the butterfly crown began showing up in graphical form on Columbia's Website. This design wouldn't formally be adopted as part of Columbia's official branding until 2006, though there appears to be some confusion as to whether the Medical Center's 'Spaded' crown pre-dates the version with crosses that began appearing around 1996.

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 mirrored the cleaned up unornamented crown design that had begun appering in the mid 1990s with one major change: in a radical departure from over a century of precedent, the Medical Center adopted a crown design without crosses. Instead the crown featured 'secularized' spades. The new spaded design was incorporated into the selection of crowns used, somewhat indiscriminately by this point, by the University. In fact it was incorporated into the University's new logo as appearing on the new website that debuted in 2003, 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 older crossed design that had sprouted up in the 90s and rolled out and given an official imprimatur.

The confused evolution of the design can be seen in the resulting usages across campus. The original studded cut-out butterfly design was used on CUIDs in the late 1990s. That design without studs can still be seen on the University flag on stage in the Low Library Rotunda, which also gets trotted out onto the stage during University Commencement. The stud-less cut out design has also 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 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

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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.

References

• Article by John B. Pine in the "Fortnightly Bulletin" in fall 1913 (See letter from Milton Davies dated 11/11/1913 in Historical Subject Files, Series XXI: Symbols, Box 255, Folder 3)

Additional Adaptations

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  Crown on the frieze in Hamilton Hall

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  Crown above the CC Dean's office door. It's also affixed to various plaques and doors in Hamilton Hall.

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  Crown on the CC Dean's office door

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  Crown affixed above the decorative gates in the lobby of Butler Library

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  Crown on the frieze in Butler Lounge

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  Crown on a banner in Low Library during the the Queen of England's visit to Columbia as depicted on a painting on the 3rd floor in Butler Library

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  The Columbia Society of Automotive Engineers crown