Rice: Public Art on Campus

Over the past four decades, Rice has built a serious outdoor art collection, much of it overseen by the Moody Center for the Arts. This loop starts near Entrance 8 and moves east through quads, college lawns and courtyards. Along the way you'll find weathering steel, cast bronze, Italian glass and Texas granite. Most pieces are outdoors and free to see anytime; the Moody galleries keep set hours.

Over the past four decades Rice University has built one of Houston's most rewarding collections of outdoor art, and this loop through its shaded quads, college lawns and courtyards is a relaxed way to see it. Most of the works stand outdoors and can be seen for free at any hour.

The collection is overseen by the Moody Center for the Arts, a 50,000-square-foot building by Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan that opened in 2017 and hosts free exhibitions. The pieces around campus span a wide range of materials. Jaume Plensa's Mirror places two seated figures, built from steel letters of many alphabets, face to face in a grove, while Beverly Pepper's Occam's Wedge, among her final sculptures, rises about 30 feet in a courtyard.

Look too for Shirazeh Houshiary's Seif, a twisting tower of colored glass bricks made in Italy and lit from within, so it changes from noon to dusk to night. The oldest work here is Michael Heizer's 45°, 90°, 180° from 1984: three slabs of pink Texas granite from Marble Falls set tilted, upright and flat, which students have long used as benches.

For art lovers, architecture fans and anyone who enjoys finding major sculpture in an unhurried campus setting, it's one of the most satisfying free walks in Houston.