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News May 15, 2025
Yale School of Architecture debuts new ceremonial mace
Faculty at the Yale School of Architecture have designed and constructed a new ceremonial mace, which will make its debut at Yale’s 324th commencement on May 19. The new mace incorporates deep historical symbolism with cutting edge technology, resulting in a spectacular piece of university regalia.
The School of Architecture houses state-of-the-art Fabrication Labs, including a wood shop, metal shop, industrial laser cutters, and water-jet cutters. Dean Deborah Berke and Deputy Dean Phil Bernstein felt it was important to showcase these twenty-first century resources and there was nowhere more symbolic to do so than through a new school mace. They turned to the school’s fabrication faculty, Timothy Newton and Nathan Burnell, to design and make this special object. “Architects have always used models to communicate complex spatial information but also to prototype building components and test ideas,” says Bernstein. “It turns out that those same tools can be used to prototype and develop complex objects with many uses. We thought it was time to show what we can do.“
A 3d-printed aluminum model of Paul Rudolph Hall sits atop the mace.
The symbolism of various components of the mace celebrates the histories of the university and the school. At the top, Paul Rudolph Hall, the world-famous brutalist masterpiece that houses the School of Architecture on Yale’s Campus, is modeled in 3d-printed aluminum, produced from an intricate digital model of the building. Immediately below that, a model of an octagonal column forms the neck of the mace. The original column it is modeled after sits on the second floor of Paul Rudolph Hall and was salvaged from a building designed by Louis Sullivan, the Chicago architect. Four School of Architecture shields sit around the neck of the mace and a miniature carving of Minerva, modeled after the plaster cast statue that overlooks the building’s 4th floor studios, here adorns the mace in cast silver. The staff of the mace is made from fluted ebonized ash wood, carved to recall the corrugated concrete walls of Paul Rudolph Hall, and carved in sections using a rotary-axis CNC mill with a profile that tapers from square at the top to a circle at the base.
The staff of the mace is made from fluted ebonized ash wood, carved to recall the corrugated concrete walls of Paul Rudolph Hall.
The pommel of the mace is in the form of a badminton shuttlecock, celebrating the student tradition of turning the school’s review pits into badminton courts. However, the base of the shuttlecock here is an acorn, recalling Connecticut’s Charter Oak, and its feathers are in the shape of elm leaves, commemorating New Haven, the Elm City.
Details of the mace include four School of Architecture shields and a miniature statue of Minvera, all cast in silver. The pommel of the mace is in the form of a badminton shuttlecock, celebrating the student tradition of turning the school’s review pits into badminton courts.
The new mace replaces one in use since the 1970s, when the schools of Art and Architecture were made independent. Then-dean Cesar Pelli brought together lathed wood and marble into an iconic postmodern form. Pelli also designed the new school shield, composed of three drafting compasses.
“Dean Pelli’s mace served the school well and was in use for over five decades,” says Deborah Berke, Edward P. Bass Dean and J.M. Hoppin Professor of Architecture. “Given the pace of change in technology, we wanted something that symbolizes the School’s leadership in advanced fabrication methods and the expertise of our in-house fabrication shop faculty and staff. The new mace showcases our abilities in design, but also in CNC fabrication methods like 3D printing, on the Commencement stage.”
Newton and Burnell had previously shared their skills in making through Small Objects, a proposal-based class in making with a cross-disciplinary enrollment from architects to neuroscience engineers. In the course, students design and make objects ranging from musical and scientific instruments, jewelry, and teapots, using techniques from goldsmithing and gemstone cutting, all using the equipment housed in the School of Architecture’s Fabrication Labs, which is fully equipped for building models, fabricating furniture, sculpting, and exploring building systems.
“Making helps us understand the intimacy of scale, the material implications of design, how things get manufactured, how the characteristics of certain materials need to be worked with in certain ways.“
In the Small Objects course, students design and make objects ranging from musical and scientific instruments, jewelry, and teapots, using techniques from goldsmithing and gemstone cutting, all using the equipment housed in the School of Architecture’s Fabrication Labs.
Newton and Burnell believe the art of making things needs renewed attention, in architecture schools but also as a means for researchers from across the university to bring their ideas into reality. As Newton says, “Making helps us understand the intimacy of scale, the material implications of design, how things get manufactured, how the characteristics of certain materials need to be worked with in certain ways. There is a legion of people who work through making; it, too, is a form of expression.” Burnell adds, “It is important to use a material rather than just representing it in an image. The material provides feedback.”
As the mace makes its debut in this year’s commencement ceremony, Newton and Burnell will have already started on the design and fabrication of a new mace for another of Yale’s schools. “Yale has always been about making,” Newton concludes. “Learning how to bring your ideas into reality is liberating.
Fabrication faculty Timothy Newton and Nathan Burnell created the mace as a demonstration of the School of Architecture’s advanced fabrication methods.
