University of Texas Tower to undergo $70 million restoration
On the west clockface of the University of Texas Tower ― a treasured Longhorn landmark that was once the city’s tallest building ― a cricket rests on the hand. Individual light bulbs create the clock face’s glow, and mechanical technology that clicks every 30 seconds powers the hand forward.
The tower opened in 1937 to be the university’s main building and library. Decorated with seals of the world’s greatest universities and names of the Western world’s renowned thinkers, the tower represents the tireless ambition that has propelled UT forward for a century. Steel bookshelves literally reinforce the building’s structure, and the institution has still not reached the building’s massive capacity for books.
View the iconic landmark from Interstate 35 or U.S. 290, the gold paint chipping off the clocks’ edges, the bumpy observation desk, and the burnt-orange rust on the building’s side and windows, can’t be seen. But to passersby on the Forty Acres, the aged features can obscure the tower’s most notable design elements and the excellence it represents to alums, students and UT leaders.
Now, after 87 years, university administrators have committed to undertaking the largest reinvestment in the landmark since it was built.
Starting in November, the tower will undergo a $70 million, multi-year restoration. The goal is for project to finish by August 2027, restoring the building to its “former glory,” President Jay Hartzell said.
The scope of the project, initially added to the Capital Improvement Plan by University of Texas System regents in February, has narrowed to only focus on the building’s exterior due to higher-than-anticipated costs. Renovations to the building itself are expected to cost $56,385,000 — about $10 million more than the expected cost. The initially planned interior renovations and grounds restoration to improve visitors’ experience will be deferred until other funds are identified, Hartzell said, due to the intricate level of work required and associated expenses.
Regents in August approved the newly narrowed scope and officially authorized the previously agreed-upon $70 million for the project: $26 million from donations, $26 million from the Permanent University Fund Bond, and $18 million from the Available University Fund.
In an exclusive interview with the American-Statesman, Hartzell said the restoration will set the UT Tower up for long-term success. He described the iconic landmark as both a unifying symbol and “a beacon for what we want the university to be.”
“When you think about the boldness of a pretty young university in a pretty small town deciding to build a building taller than the state Capitol, to be a library that was going to hold more books than we owned, it was a sign in that time of audacity, ambition, strive for excellence,” Hartzell said. “The tower still has that same connotation to us — what is possible for a world class university.”
Today, the tower is the awaited backdrop for student graduation photos, a symbol that glows orange in moments of university celebration, the home of the familiar sounding Carillon’s bells and the president’s office. The renovation was regents-initiated, Chairman Kevin Eltife said, and he thanked Hartzell for his vision and the university for raising funds.
The renovation will regild and paint the clocks, clean and restore of the exterior of the building to its original form, gild key decorative elements, clean masonry, replace the lighting (now often done manually) with LED lights, and waterproof the tower observation deck and the room with the instrument that controls the tower’s 52 carillon bells.
Larry Speck, a professor in UT’s school of architecture, first became fascinated with the tower when he was 26 years old. His parents attended UT two years after it opened, and his grandparents attended before then when other defining UT buildings were being erected. Speck spent his UT career learning and documenting the tower’s history, talking to historians and poring over old master plans and drawings.
The University of Texas’s main building, Speck told the Statesman, was designed to top the hill opposite the hilltop the Texas Capitol sits, leaving the buildings in perpetual “dialogue” with each other. At first the building was squat, neo-gothic style with problems “almost from the beginning.” But as leaders looked to replace it, a surprisingly serendipitous turn of events suddenly enabled them to do so fast.
UT, which had then relied on leasing its West Texas land for cattle grazing to collect revenue, had suddenly struck oil in the 1930s, the same time the Great Depression rendered the market desperately in need of jobs and made building a historic bargain. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration, UT applied for funding for its new tower and secured it.
On a Thursday morning walk, Speck pointed out the panels, carved with letters from eight ancient alphabet, that have now rusted. He recalled spending hours by the turtle pond trying to decode those ancient letters.
“Of course, people look at that and they say, ‘Oh isn’t that cool? They’re burnt orange,'” Speck joked. “They’re not burnt orange, they’re just rusted like crazy … and when they’re all restored, it will be beautiful.”
Speck said the renovation will allow the intentional elements that famous architect Phillip Paul Cret built into the design to finally be uncovered and appreciated, once again illuminating the story behind the building and the vision behind making UT a world class university.
“It’s really very impressive, very erudite building. It’s about language, alphabets, it’s about words, it’s about books,” Speck said. “It’s about all of that that goes into making a library.”
Opposite the cricket on the clockface on Thursday afternoon, a rare peregrine falcon swoops down into the city below.
“That’s Tower Girl!” said Brent Stringfellow, associate vice president of campus observations and the university architect, referring to the famous and rare bird that’s made the tower her home.
Stringfellow has spent the last two years helping prepare the restoration. The project advocate, he told the Statesman that the construction will “reinvigorate” the grandeur that makes the tower so symbolic of the university’s pursuits.
The restoration will also incorporate elements to make it easier to upkeep the tower. Now, the only way to clean the top floors’ exteriors is to propel from the top or build scaffolding, he said. But after the renovation, there’ll be a mechanism to make it much easier, he said, and his department is making plans to better care for the exterior. His department is also in the study phase for how to best improve the interior.
The tower will be operational throughout the restoration, UT said, and the university will continue to light the landmark and ring the bells as allowed to minimize disruption. The university is encouraging people to take their graduation pictures before construction begins.
Stringfellow’s hope, he said, is that the restoration will “help remind people what the Tower means.”
“Now, we’re onto the next level of ambition for the university,” Stringfellow said.
Hartzell said he hopes to raise enough funding to renovate the tower’s interior to create a better user experience.
“You look at the level of precision and work on that building. Buildings aren’t built like that very often,” he said. “We’re starting with what we knew we had to do; and now we have the potential, I think the support is going to be there … to figure out what else is possible.”
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