This new facility for collaborative research in sustainable energy, which adjoins Chamney House on the south, was dedicated July 16, 2011. An 1,820-square-foot, one-story stone building, it was funded by donations to and designed and built by about 20 architecture students in Studio 804, a program of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning.
Planning for a dedicated building to house visual arts and their academic offices began in earnest about 1970, after courses had been scattered in a dozen campus buildings — including Bailey Annex, Memorial Stadium, Flint Hall, Chamney House and Barn, and the Wesley Building — for nearly 90 years. The new building was designed by Paul Krause, a 1956 alumnus and principal at Horner & Krause of Kansas City, Kansas. Construction began in 1977 on the hilltop south of Marvin Hall.
In September 1963, KU Endowment acquired this 130-acre property, house, barn, and outbuildings from the Chamney family, leading Lawrence dairy farmers since 1912.
The School of Fine Arts used the house in the early 1970s for interior design classes and craft studios. It also housed the Center for Design Research until summer 2011, when a new, energy-efficient structure south of the house opened.
In 1912, Lawrence banker Jabez B. Watkins (1845-1921) built the three-story, 26-room house designed by W.J. Mitchell for himself and his wife, Elizabeth Miller Watkins. She lived in the home until her death in 1939, willing it to the university as a chancellor’s residence. It replaced the original brick chancellor’s residence at 1345 Louisiana St.
Chancellor Deane W. Malott and his family were the first to live in the home. The first floor is used for receptions and other public functions; the upper stories are family living quarters.
The fountain was authorized in October 1952 as a memorial to alumnae on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Lambda chapter at KU. Students, alumni and friends donated about $5,000 to the construction fund; the balance of the $11,800 cost was contributed by KU Endowment’s Elizabeth M. Watkins Fund.
Katie Kring, 2003
In 2003 the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau sponsored “Jayhawks on Parade,” a five-month exhibit of 5-foot, molded fiberglass Jayhawks decorated in themes including Vincent van Gogh, patchwork quilts, cubism, mosaics, and abstractionism. The 30 Jayhawks were decorated by area artists and placed around Lawrence; many later were auctioned for charity.
Part of the Facilities Services Complex, it has offices and shops for carpenters, painters, plumbers, steamfitters, lock shop, moving crew, storage, recycling facilities, etc.
Opened in 1923 as the first residence hall at KU, the women’s hall was named — despite her protests — in honor of Alberta Corbin, an 1893 alumna and professor of German who was a suffragist leader, first university “adviser of women” and an advocate of women’s housing. The original, south building, designed by State Architect Ray Gamble in the English colonial style, was on the site of the university’s first building, North College (1866). In 1951 North Corbin, housing 180 more women, opened; in 1958 the buildings were connected, and both were renovated in the 1990s.
The 1892 home of Juanita Strait, bequeathed to KU Endowment at her death in 2002, was refurbished as a community center for the scholarship halls that surround it and an office and apartment for the scholarship-halls complex director. Mrs. Strait, a longtime piano teacher, was the widow of Reginald Strait, a physical education professor, and she had befriended many scholarship-hall students.
William H. Danforth, chair of Ralston Purina Co., provided the largest single donation for the chapel through his foundation; the rest of the funding and most of the furnishings were donated by faculty, students, alumni and Lawrence residents. Edward W. Tanner of Kansas City, KU’s first architectural engineering graduate in 1916 and principal designer for the J.C. Nichols Co. 1919-64, designed the 90-seat Gothic Revival structure. The construction was done in part by German prisoners of war, many of them masons, who were detained in a Lawrence facility.
Construction began in fall 2014 on the center, which will house James Naismith's original "Rules of Basket Ball" as well as a student center and meeting rooms. The three-story, $18 million center adjoining the northeast corner of the Fieldhouse and the Booth Hall of Athletics will be named for Paul and Katherine DeBruce, 1973 alumni who are primary donors. Completion of the 31,000-square-foot structure, which will be connected to the second-level concourse of the field house, is expected in fall 2015.
Alumni Jill S. Docking and Tom Docking of Wichita gave $500,000 toward the construction of a gateway at the northeast edge of the main campus, near the Kansas Union. It comprises a fountain, brick pylon and plantings fitted into an oval stone surround.
The Dockings’ children and his brother, William, also are alumni, as were his father and grandfather, former Kansas governors Robert Docking (1967-75) and George Docking (1957-61); and his mother, the late Meredith Gear Docking. Tom Docking was lieutenant governor of Kansas 1983-87.
The center was dedicated Aug. 25, 1990, and named in honor of Kansas Sen. Robert J. Dole, an advocate for people with disabilities. Kiene & Bradley Design Group designed the $12 million classroom and clinic space, which houses undergraduate and graduate departments and research and training centers, including the Department of Applied Behavioral Science and affiliates such as the Child and Family Services Clinic, gerontology, early childhood autism, the Edna A.
This west campus building, dedicated in July 2003, is named for retired Kansas Sen. Robert J. Dole. The $11 million, 28,000-square-foot facility, designed by ASIA of Lenexa, houses papers from Dole’s 35-year career and is the world’s largest congressional archive.
This hall houses 48 women in 12 bedroom/study area suites. It opened in 1954 and was largely funded by the gift of Burt Chronister of Kansas City, Kan., in memory of his wife, Ava Douthart Chronister, a 1901 graduate, and her sister Lela Douthart, an 1899 alumna. The architect was Raymond Coolidge.
One of KU’s signature buildings, Dyche Hall was built as the Museum of Natural History in 1901-02 to a design by Kansas City architects Walter C. Root and George W. Siemens; they used the Venetian Romanesque style characteristic of southern European churches of 1050-1200. The limestone building, distinguished by a steep-roofed tower, arched doorway and elaborate stone ornamentations of natural and fantastic animals and plants, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Joseph Robaldo Frazee and Vitruvius Frazee, 1901-02
Master mason and sculptor Joseph Robaldo Frazee and his son Vitruvius Frazee carved the 12 creatures in 1901 and 1902. The cottonwood limestone statues, each 44 inches tall, resemble the gargoyles used on medieval buildings to disguise drainpipes; the Dyche creatures are “grotesques,” because they lack the pipe and spout that permit gargoyles to function as drains.
Construction has begun on the Earth, Energy & Environment Center adjoining Lindley Hall on the southwest at Jayhawk Boulevard and Naismith Drive. The 130,000-square-foot interdisciplinary center will have auditoriums, classrooms, laboratories, and multipurpose spaces designed to foster collaboration among researchers, scientists, and students in geology, chemical and petroleum engineering, geophysics, energy, nanotechnology, and the environment. Its cost is expected to be $82 million, about half provided by private gifts.
This building in the engineering complex was dedicated Oct. 17, 2003, and named for major donor Robert J. Eaton, a 1963 alumnus and retired chair of DaimlerChrysler AG. Eaton donated $5 million for the project, about one-third of the cost of the 80,000-square-foot hall, which was funded entirely through private donations. It was designed by Gould Evans Associates of Lawrence and is connected by an enclosed walkway to Learned Hall.
Opened in 1983 and now known as “Mrs. E’s,” it was named in 1993 for Lenoir D. Ekdahl, director of residence-hall food service for 35 years before her retirement in 1989. The three-level dining center for the 3,300 students in Daisy Hill residence halls adjoins Lewis Hall; it features food-court style service and seats about 700 diners. A $5 million renovation completed in August 2013 included new equipment and furnishings, new food stations and revamped menus and food service.
Built in 1963 as a men’s hall, it is named for Fred Ellsworth, a 1922 journalism alumnus who from 1924 to 1963 was secretary of the Alumni Association and editor of its Graduate Magazine. Remodeled in 2002-03, it houses about 580 men and women in two-person rooms, suites and studios.
580 men and women
This building incorporates a high bay facility for research, testing and developing large structural systems such as concrete piers or steel girder connections for bridges; and a student projects fabrication center for design competition teams and students in capstone design courses. Faculty and students in several School of Engineering departments use the 24,700-square-foot building, completed in summer 2014.
The limestone main building was designed by Superintendent E.F. Crocker and constructed by the Buildings & Grounds Department in 1906. A second story and entry were added in 1926. The complex south of Stauffer-Flint Hall includes the 1922 power plant, designed by State Architect Ray Gamble and John Shea of B&G, and class whistle; offices and shops for Facilities Services units including plumbing, electrical, engineering, major systems and maintenance departments; and the main storeroom.
This redbrick building was originally the Frank C. Foley Geohydrology Center, an annex of the Kansas Geological Survey named for its director 1954-70. It opened in spring 1980, and in 1989 the survey moved its office into Parker Hall. The Kansas Biological Survey was housed here from 1989 to 2003; Foley now houses Monarch Watch, which monitors the migrations and habitats of monarch butterflies. Monarch Watch is directed by Orley “Chip” Taylor, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
This building of cottonwood and silverdale limestone opened March 6, 1967. It sits on the second-highest point on Mount Oread — 1,031 feet — and is visible for miles. (The highest point is 1,037 feet, between Joseph R. Pearson Hall and Carruth-O'Leary Hall on West Campus Road.) Construction began in March 1965 on the $2.2 million structure, designed by State Architect James Canole and T.R. Griest of Topeka.
