University of Arkansas at Little Rock (Little Rock Junior College)

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock began in 1927 as Little Rock Junior College (LRJC) and was initially located in Little Rock Senior High School. In 1931, increasing numbers of students forced the college to move to a larger facility, the U. M. Rose grade school (1915, John Parks Almand) at 812 W. 13th Street. The college relocated again in 1949 to its present site on eighty acres of land donated by Little Rock businessman Raymond Rebsamen. In 1957 the college initiated a four-year degree program, achieved university ranking, and was renamed Little Rock University. It merged with the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1969. When LRJC moved to its new site in 1949, its campus consisted of a compact group of buildings, many designed by the firm of Ginocchio, Cromwell and Associates, ringed by parking areas. The early structures included the Education Building (formerly North Building) and Larson Hall (formerly South Building). These two modernist classroom blocks built in 1949 of orange-red brick form the north and south sides of a tree-shaded quadrangle and are balanced to west and east by Ross Hall and the former John A. Larson Library (now Administration North) of 1949 designed by Dietrich Neyland. It also is of orange-red brick and flatroofed, though it has suffered alterations.

Robert Millett and Dietrich Neyland collaborated on the design of the original Student Union Building (Student Union A; 1959). The Science Building (1959, Dietrich Neyland) on the northwestern end of the campus was part of a three-building complex with a north-facing courtyard. The other two buildings were demolished in the late twentieth century to make room for the construction of Fribourgh Hall, an International Style brick building. Because of the university’s limited site, new construction from the mid-1960s tended to be multistory. Stabler Hall (formerly East Building) of 1966 by Ginocchio, Cromwell, Carter and Neyland was originally two stories but later gained five additional floors. Many buildings have been added since the 1990s, including the six-story Constructivist George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology Building (2010), a LEED Gold building by Cromwell Architects Engineers. Also LEED Gold certified is the brick and glass Charles W. Donaldson Student Services Building (2012, Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects).