The Genesis of the Chemistry Building, 1922-26

Away from the archives, I find myself trawling through the images on my laptop this afternoon, looking for something interesting to show you. The biggest drawback to this is that I have so many pictures it’s easy to get distracted. The advantage, though, is that I can see things I miss in the day-to-day press of business. What I noticed this morning is that I’ve unintentionally scanned and saved the birth of the Chemistry Building in several really interesting and unusual images.

This first photo is a Cram and Ferguson drawing from 1922:

Here’s the 1923 groundbreaking. Check out the mules at work:

This next one is a really unusual view, probably taken sometime in late 1924 or early 1925. Lots of cars parked along the road through the quad:

And finally the finished product, also undated but very soon after completion, with Tony Martino’s rose garden in the foreground. Note that it isn’t exactly as drawn in the first picture but it’s pretty close: