Rice founder’s statue to be moved in courtyard change
Rice University named an architect on Monday for the longawaited redesign of its most recognizable courtyard, which will include relocating a statue of the institution founder whose legacy came under scrutiny after the nationwide racial uprising in 2020.
The school’s Board of Trustees has selected a design plan by the internationally recognized landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz — a group also known locally for its ongoing work on the Ismaili Center and the 10-year master plan at Memorial Park.
The detailed redesign still isn’t public, more than a year after the trustees agreed to uproot the sculpture of William Marsh Rice from its perch at the center of the Academic Quadrangle and place it on a less visible spot off the perimeter. Students are now eyeing a groundbreaking in the fall.
“Rice and the Board of Trustees worked diligently to honor all of the viewpoints expressed by the university community … while also being mindful of the need for bold change that the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice emphasized in its 2021 report, ‘On the Founder’s Memorial,’” Rice President Reginald DesRoches said in a news release.
“Nelson Byrd Woltz’s concept both respects our desire to create deeper thoughtfulness within the Academic Quadrangle and awakens the site’s potential to become a dynamic and welcoming gathering space for students, faculty, staff, alumni and visitors year-round,” DesRoches continued.
In addition to moving the socalled Founder’s Memorial within the quadrangle, Nelson Byrd Woltz will locate a new major artwork to fill the central space, particularly one that celebrates the beginning of integration
at Rice. The plan will also reserve space for future monuments recognizing other university milestones, according to the university.
Rice officials said that the
firm will share renderings of its plan this spring as it continues to collaborate with the board and school community.
Rice Student Association President Gabby Franklin said she felt overjoyed on Monday to hear that the project was finally rolling.
“There were so many different factors to take into account,” she said. “The fact that there’s a development makes me excited that this is going to go through.”
The quadrangle
Trustees voted in January 2022 to redesign the quad following months of discussion about the statue’s place of prominence at the 110-year-old private university, mirroring nationwide conversations about what to do with monuments honoring figures who backed secession, slavery and genocide.
The Academic Quadrangle is the architectural anchor of Rice’s campus, a heavily wooded area that largely reflects Mediterranean-influenced designs.
The grassy area is bordered on one side by Lovett Hall, the original administrative building that dates to the school’s founding in 1912; it has recently been used for commencement ceremonies and the investiture of DesRoches, who is Rice’s first Black president. At the moment, the statue sits atop the spot where the eponymous founder’s ashes are buried.
While some students had advocated the sculpture be moved to a museum or a more remote part of campus, trustees determined that their plan to keep it in the quadrangle would recognize Rice’s significance in founding the institution as well as acknowledging his slave ownership and the university’s segregationist origins.
“The Academic Quadrangle is the heart of Rice and holds, therefore, the full trajectory of the university’s history which includes a demonstration of the university’s values of inclusivity and community in the 21st century,” Woltz said in a statement. “The redesign of the five acres of landscape spaces in the Academic Quadrangle offers a thoughtful example of the evolving dynamic uses and prevailing narratives in a space where minds and lives are shaped in academia.”
William Marsh Rice has long been recognized for his contributions to Houston, but in recent years has been acknowledged as a benefactor with unsavory practices in his personal life.
A merchant from Massachusetts, Rice moved to Houston and quickly amassed his wealth in Texas. He endowed the private university in 1891, explicitly for whites, and his reputation was further marred by his ownership of 15 slaves. He was killed in 1900 by his valet and a lawyer who had forged several documents in attempts to acquire his estate, according to the Texas State Historical Association. The university opened 12 years later.
Rice University historians and other stakeholders dug into the founder’s history through a Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice and ultimately recommended that the quadrangle be redesigned to account for Rice’s history and uphold its current values.
Student movements also preceded the trustees’ decision: The Rice Student Association called for the statue’s relocation so that it was no longer be a “singular point of attraction,” the Black Student Association initiated several conversations about the issue, and “Down With Willy” protests occurred throughout fall 2021 at Rice.
The Rice Board of Trustees received more than 1,200 responses from students, faculty and staff voicing their ideas and opinions about what to do with the statue. The board’s working group also met with chairs of the task force, as well as the executive committee of the Association of Rice University Black Alumni and other Rice community leaders, according to the university.
The firm
Rice trustees landed on Woltz’s firm after holding an invitational competition for the project last summer. Woltz is known for the research that goes into his designs, especially in creating sustainable landscapes that also account for the native ecologies of the sites, Rice officials said.
The group is becoming better known to Houstonians — Woltz developed Memorial Park’s 10-year master plan that saw the completion of the Clay Family Eastern Glades in 2020.
Woltz and his firm found new ways for the park to engage with residents and visitors while simultaneously returning some acreage to the site’s original ecosystem, Gulf Coast native prairie, back when the land was roamed by giant herds of bison.
He also designed the Ismaili Center Houston, under construction at the southeast corner of Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard.
The center – the first one in the U.S. – is funded by His Highness Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, and his Aga Khan Foundation. The foundation bought the 11-acre parcel in 2006; work on the site is under way and could finish by the end of 2024.
It will be used by local and visiting Ismailis for worship, and by others for cultural and educational events. Woltz is designing gardens on all four sides of the center, terraced plantings and water features, with a nod to ancient Islamic architecture but with materials compatible to the Texas climate.