Artful Opening

Rice celebrates the opening of the Moody Center for the Arts

The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University was designed by renowned Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan. The architect’s striking contemporary design, with its bold geometric shapes and inviting transparency, will create a beacon on Rice’s campus while affirming the Moody’s mission to foster connections across disciplines. Photo by Jeff Fitlow
The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University was designed by renowned Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan. The architect’s striking contemporary design, with its bold geometric shapes and inviting transparency, will create a beacon on Rice’s campus while affirming the Moody’s mission to foster connections across disciplines. Photo by Jeff Fitlow

Spring 2017

ON FEB. 24, RICE celebrated the opening of the Moody Center for the Arts, a 50,000-square-foot space designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration through the arts. “The Moody is an experimental space for both fabrication and exhibition, with an equal emphasis on process and presentation,” said Alison Weaver, the Suzanne Deal Booth Executive Director of the Moody, who welcomed Houston civic officials, leaders of fellow cultural institutions, donors, artists, students, faculty, staff, alumni and the public to the ceremony. “It’s an extraordinarily flexible teaching space to encourage new modes of making, learning and presenting. And it’s a forum for creative partnerships with visiting national and international artists, as well as the Houston arts community,” she said. Indeed, the Moody’s inaugural season features exhibitions and artists’ talks, dramatic and dance performances, and an artist-in-residence program and provides space for campus classes and collaborations.

“The Moody Foundation realized that the center for the arts fills a need that existed at Rice,” said Ross Moody, chairman of the Moody Foundation. Designed by architect Michael Maltzan, the distinctive gray brick and glass-walled structure located on the west side of Rice’s campus has already been recognized by Architectural Digest as one of the best new university buildings in the world.

teamLab: Flowers & People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour (2015) Through August 13, 2017. teamLab is a Tokyo-based collective operating at the frontier of art and technology. In this interactive installation, sensors respond to visitors’ movements, causing flowers to sprout, bloom and wilt in an ever-changing cycle. Photo by Jeff Fitlow
teamLab: Flowers & People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour (2015) Through August 13, 2017. teamLab is a Tokyo-based collective operating at the frontier of art and technology. In this interactive installation, sensors respond to visitors’ movements, causing flowers to sprout, bloom and wilt in an ever-changing cycle. Photo by Jeff Fitlow