I’m traveling today so I don’t have time to say much of anything. However, I do have two pictures of GRB for you to marvel at. The first seems to have been taken around the time the building was completed, which if I recall correctly was about 1991. I recently read some of the very high flown prose that issued forth upon the opening of GRB and was interested to learn that it was envisioned as a sort of intellectual bridge (in addition to a physical one) between the Chemistry Building and the Biology Building. I suspect that notion was conceived ex post facto, but maybe not. Either way, it had never occurred to me and I think it’s clever.
And here’s the same spot this spring, roughly 24 years later:
The original drawing published in the Thresher (fall 1987 I think) lacked the sallyport.
The Brown Hall sallyport is visible in the artist’s conception published on the front page of the Dec. 2, 1988, Thresher announcing the beginning of fund raising for this and the Alice Pratt Brown Hall.
The article began: “President George Rupp and the Board of Governors announced fundraising plans for the construction of two new buildings on campus at a luncheon Tuesday, November 22. The Alice Pratt Brown Hall for the Shepherd School of Music and the George R. Brown Hall for the Biosciences and Bioengineering Department carry a combined pricetag of $41.5 million. …”
(https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67869/thr19881202.pdf?sequence=1)
The Feb. 26, 1988, Thresher had an article on page 5 that announced plans for the buidling. The architect was announced, but no images were published.
That article began: “A new biosciences and bioengineering research laboratory on the Rice campus will be located on the northwest end of campus. Its exact location, size and construction date are as yet unknown. …
” … Josephine Abercrombie, Chairman of the Building and Grounds Committee of the Board of Governors, also announced that the building will be designed by the architectural firm of Cambridge Seven Associates. Charles Redmon will be the chief designer. … Architects of both the biosciences and bioengineering building and the Shepherd School building will be arriving to make some final decisions in March.”
(https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/67831/thr19880226.pdf?sequence=1)
The trees have done very well!