Rice University
Rice University was opened in 1912 in Houston, Texas, and is now one of the top 20 universities in the USA. It is named after William Marsh Rice, a large cotton manufacturer who founded the William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science, and Art in 1891. After his death he donated a large part of his inheritance to the Institute, which was finally renamed Rice University in 1960. For the new university, an area of 120 hectares in the Museum District southwest of downtown Houston was purchased and developed into a closed campus over the next decades.
Lovett Hall
Lovett Hall is located in the eastern part of the campus and is the administrative centre and main building of the university. It was completed as one of the first buildings on campus and forms the east side of the Academic Quadrangle. Through the passageway in the building we look at this quadrangle, which is surrounded by five other buildings and in the middle of which a statue in honour of William Marsh Rice was errected. The designing of a master plan for the campus and the first buildings was awarded to the architect Ralph Adams Cram and his office in Boston. He designed Lovett Hall in the so-called Mediterranean Revival Style, inspired by Northern Italian Romanesque architecture and decorated with Neo-Byzantine elements to fit the hot and humid climate in Houston.
In front of Lovett Hall we see Founder’s Court and here also runs the Loop Road, a one-way street that circles the campus. The building at the eastern end of the campus faces downtown and thus also forms the university’s reception area for the city.
This panorama was created as part of the project Germany Street Fronts for the Year of German American Friendship 2019 and was presented to the German Consulate in Houston as a print together with a view of the University of Leipzig.
