The General Plan of the William M. Rice Institute and Its Architectural
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Architecture at Rice The General Plan of the by Stephen Fox Monograph 29 William M. Rice Institute and Its Architectural Deuelopment fa ifi ifiB ^^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from LYRASIS members and Sloan Foundation funding http://www.archive.org/details/generalplanofwilOOfoxs Architecture at Rice The General Plan of the by Stephen Fox Monograph 29 William M. Rice Institute and Its Architectural Development School of Architecture Rice University 1980 ::t ji(nw at Outer .i from Aeftto Contents Acknowledgements iii This issue is dedicated to Ray Watltin Hoagland, Introduction iv daughter of William Ward Watkin, alumna of Rice Institute and 1 Beginnings 1 friend of architecture at Rice. 2 A General Plan 7 3 The Architecture 17 4 First Buildings 31 5 Later Buildings and Projects 53 6 After Cram 75 Notes 83 Bibliography 93 Glossary 95 Index 96 Credits 99 Cover—Administration building, William M. Rice Institute. Houston. Texas. Cram. Goodhue and Ferguson. 1909-1912. Perspective view of east (left) and north elevations. 1912. Copyright © by Stephen Fox and the School of Architecture Rice University Houston. Texas All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number; 80-54302 ISBN; 0-938754-00-9 Acknowledgements This study resumes the Architecture at Rice man, former Manager of Campus Business Affairs; monograph series, dormant since 1972. Its publication Guernsey Palmer, Jr. and Ed Samfield of the Office of would not have been possible without the generous Planning and Construction; Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. support of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Avery and Mrs. Henry Stem; John H. Freeman, Jr., of the firm of Lloyd Jones W. Hoagland. Nor would it have been possible without Brewer and Associates; Mrs. Marion J. Levy; Michael the encouragement and determination of O. Jack Mit- Wilford of the firm of James Stirling, Michael Wilford chell, Dean of the School of Architecture, and Charles and Associates; and John Rivers all made visual Tapley. materials available to supplement the principal archival sources noted above. Thanks are also due to the many The General Plan of the William M. Rice Institute and persons queried during the course of research and Its Architectural Development is an outgrowth of an ex- writing; H. Malcolm Lovett, former Chairman of the hibit held at the Sewall Gallery of Rice University, 19 Board of Governors of Rice University; James C. October to 19 November 1977, organized by Drexel Morehead, Jr.; Stayton Nunn, former Instructor in Ar- Turner. The exhibit consisted mainly of materials chitecture; Anderson Todd, Wortham Professor of Ar- assembled from the collections of the Boston Public chitecture; Joseph Nalle, Treasurer; Fredericka Library and the Fondren Library of Rice University. It Meiners, Research Associate, Rice University Historical was supported by contributions from Mr. and Mrs. Commission; Winton F. Scott, former Assistant Pro- Nathan Avery; Mrs. Henry W. Hoagland; Morris- fessor of Architecture; John F. Staub; Howard Barn- Aubry Architects; Lloyd Jones Brewer and Associates, stone; Charles S. Dawson of the Physical Plant Depart- Architects; the McGinty Partnership, Architects; 3/D ment, Southern Methodist University; Chester V. International, Inc., Architects; Spaw-Glass, Inc., Kielman, Archivist, Barker Texas History Center, General Contractors; Linbeck Construction Corpora- University of Texas; Richard Oliver, Curator, Cooper- tion; and Mayan Construction, Inc. Chester A. Boterf, Hewitt Museum; Adolph K. Placzek, Librarian of the Director of the Sewall Gallery and Associate Professor Avery Library, Columbia University; S.B. Halmann, of Art, directed the installation of the exhibit, assisted Senior Assistant Librarian, British Architectural Library by Mimi Webb-Miller. David A. Crane, then Dean of the of the Royal Institute of British Architects; John H. School of Architecture, and Ann Barr, then Executive Dobkin, Director of the National Academy of Design; Director of the Rice Design Alliance, lent the resources Douglass Shand Tucci; Beth Glasser; and Kay Flowers, of both organizations fully and enthusiastically in interlibrary loan librarian of Fondren Library. Patricia behalf of the exhibit. Toomey, slide curator of the Department of Art and Art History; Margaret Alsobrook, Director of Development; For their help in assembling materials for the exhibit Leopold Meyer; and Mrs. Harold Hecht assisted in and this monograph, special thanks are due the staff of locating visual materials for the monograph. the Woodson Research Center of the Fondren Library; Nancy Boothe Parker, Director; Pender Turnbull, former Jan Henry, Doris Anderson, Lorraine Nalepa and Director; Lauren Brown; Janis Richardson; Margaret Diania Williams of the School of Architecture patiently Olvey; Beth Wells Wray; Laura Vanderzyl; Catherine typed and retyped the manuscript. Nancy Daly, David Cook and Jackie Gilbert; also to Ola Zachry Moore, Ex- Rodwell, and Hazel Greenberg of the Office of Informa- hibits Librarian. Richard O'Keefe, former Director of tion Services, Rice University provided advice on the Fondren Library, arranged for the initial loan of ar- points of style, as did Sanford Higginbotham, Professor chitectural drawings from the Cram, Goodhue and of History and editor of the Journal of Southern Ferguson Collection of the Boston Public Library. The History. Paul Hester, Lecturer in Architecture, and staff of the Boston Public Library, Philip J. McNiff, Gerald Moorhead of Charles Tapley and Associates, Ar- Director; Yen-Tsai Feng; Sinclair H. Hitchings, Keeper chitects, assisted with the reproduction of architectural of Prints; and R. Eugene Zepp kindly made available drawings. G.l. Hagan, Manager of Printing and the library's holdings of drawings for the exhibit and Reproduction, provided crucial and unstinting support reproduction in this study. G. Holmes Perkins, former in the production of the book, which was typeset by Dean of the Graduate School of Fine Arts of the Univer- Mary Ann Taylor, Rebecca Bonar and Gloria Uddin. sity of Pennsylvania and now Curator of the Louis 1. William Haas of Technical Typesetters Inc. provided Kahn Collection of the University of Pennsylvania, and consultation in matters of production. Alex Engart, Gerald Walker, also of the Kahn Collection, arranged William Butler, Aleta Ahlstrom, and Carole Lemmon for the loan and reproduction of the drawings of Kahn's prepared the mechanicals. Alex Engart and Jeffrey project for Rice. Flicker made special drawings to accompany the text. The documentary resources available for the research Finally, recognition is due Peter C. Papademetriou, and writing of the manuscript were significantly ex- Associate Professor of Architecture; 0. Jack Mitchell, panded by the William Ward Watkin Papers, assembled and Charles Garside, Jr., Professor of History, for their at the Woodson Research Center over the past fifteen critical review of the manuscript; to Herman Dyal, years by Ray Watkin Hoagland and Pender Turnbull, William Stern and William Butler for their assistance and by facsimile copies of the Cram, Goodhue and with its graphic realization; and to Nancy Daly, Jan Ferguson and the Cram and Ferguson office logs of ar- Henry, Doris Anderson, Patricia Kleypas, and also chitectural drawings, furnished by John T. Doran of Alice Myrick Scardino and Selden A. Wallace of the Hoyle, Doran and Berry, Architects, of Boston, suc- Houston Architectural Inventory, for their help in cessor firm to Cram and Ferguson. James C. Morehead, checking the final version of the text. Jr., Professor Emeritus of Architecture; H. Russell Pitt- Introduction Too easily and too often we tend to take our piiysicai competition for a general plan of improvement for the surroundings for granted. Particularly is this ttie case United States Military Academy at West Point. Cram witfi an environment which somehow conveys an im- had been appointed consulting architect to Princeton pression of permanence. The more powerful and per- University in 1906, and for it Cram, Goodhue and suasive that impression, the less the individual who has Ferguson had designed the Class of 1877 Hall. A major been drawn into it and absorbed by it is apt to consider academic project was thus nothing new for the firm. that there was once a time when such an environment Work was begun immediately on the general plan for did not, in fact, exist. Today in 1980, there is no nobler Rice, or, more accurately, plans, for in accordance with entrance to a university campus known to me a tradition of holding, as it were, an internal competi- anywhere in the world than that of Rice. To pass tion, the architects submitted independent proposals to through the main gate, to drive or, preferably, to walk Lovett and the trustees. Cram from Boston and the length of the avenue before you, itself now a Goodhue from New York. How these plans were natural cloister solemnly shadowed by the converging received, how and why they were variously altered, limbs of oak trees, to emerge at last into full sunlight at and how the final version emerged is a fascinating the verge of the huge lawn, and to pause, stunned, no story, vividly narrated by Fox. Suffice it to say here matter how familiar the sight, by the presence of the that the general shape of the new world of the Rice In- administration building, "brilliant, astounding, endur- stitute is more that of Goodhue than of Cram. ing" as Julian Huxley hailed it, is to be drawn into another world, untroubled by change, wholly set apart, If it is to Goodhue that we owe the spaciousness of the and our instincts tell us that somehow it has always ex- campus, it is to Cram that we owe the style of the early isted. Of course the administration building endures; it buildings. Ralph Adams Cram was not merely one of has always stood there. Surely too, the long, perfectly the most distinguished architects of his generation. He proportioned vista, and just as surely the trees that so was also a student of history and a philosopher of majestically frame it.