Manuscript Tomb Mural (1962) by Josef Albers and King-lui Wu

To most passersby, this looks like a white brick wall, but it is actually a whisper of a mural designed by an influential modernist architect and a renowned painter. Observant viewers see a subtle “O” emerging from the white granite blocks, a significant shape for the elite secret society housed within.

Yale University has dozens of “secret societies” for small groups of seniors. The wealthiest of these groups meet in their own windowless clubhouses, known as “tombs,” which feature hidden entrances and soundproof walls. Most of these designs are grand and conspicuous.

Manuscript has been traditionally known as the most arts-oriented of Yale’s major secret societies. When Manuscript’s leaders were planning the group’s Elm Street headquarters in the late 1950s, they turned to Yale School of Architecture professor King-lui Wu. Wu was already known for his simple, unadorned structures; his clients knew that he would produce quiet modernist sanctuaries, not showy monuments.

King-lui Wu (right) at the Yale School of Architecture

King-lui Wu’s Rouse House (1952), North Haven, CT

Although Manuscript’s clubhouse is unremarkable from the street, it’s not as modest as it appears. Beyond the thick walls are a hidden courtyard and several subterranean floors; a 2008 Yale student reported that  the building is “elegant, modern and sleek inside with a Japanese water garden and a good deal of fine art.”¹

Although Wu disliked ornament, he wanted to add a design element to the wall facing Elm Street.

As the Yale Alumni Magazine reported in 2011, Wu “felt the wall was too austere, so he turned to his good friend and Yale colleague Josef Albers for ideas. Albers—the former Bauhaus teacher best known for his series of Homage to the Square paintings—thought a circle would be a fitting symbol of the bond uniting members of the society.” Manuscript’s members also attach importance to the Enlightenment and the sun, which made a rounded shape even more appropriate.

Albers “proposed chipping out some of the mortar between the bricks, allowing the shadows to subtly define the figure. As it turned out, the gesture was too subtle: the circle was visible only in direct sunlight, a rare condition on a north-facing wall in New Haven. So Wu created an artificial shadow by painting the recessed areas of mortar brown.”²