Intro

Built between 1969 and 1971, a few years after the Rockefeller Library was completed, the Sciences Library, although designed by the same team of architects, is quite a striking departure from the more traditional design of the Rock.

This 14-story, 180-foot reinforced concrete tower was projected to hold 450,000 volumes and its collections grew out of those of the Physical Sciences Library and the Biological Sciences Library. According to an article published in the Architectural Record in 1973, "Brown is one of the first universities in the nation to combine all its science departmental collections into a single library."

While the need for such an integrated sciences library was not debated, the particular of the concrete tower drew negative criticism on several accounts starting as early as 1962, when it was still on the drawing table.