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My name is Mike *** and I am a professor in the Biochemistry department. I'm the faculty
liaison who works with the architects and the construction crew who design and construct
a new building. There are now three buildings. We have the oldest building which is actually
called the Biochemistry Addition, and it was an addition at one time but it is now the
oldest part of the complex. That was completed in '98. Then the second building is what is
now called the Biochemical Sciences Building. That's a combination of a new research tower,
the 1906 building, and the 1985 building. It's called Biochemical Sciences because some
both Biochemistry and Biomolecularbiochemistry departments share some space in it. And then
the teaching facility which is the 1912 and 1937 wing has been completely redone and is
now the Biochemistry Building. That's the oldest part of the complex but it's been so
completely gutted that in a way it's the newest as well. All of this stuff is all interconnected
now and should be convenient to everybody. They considered tearing down all of the older
buildings and putting in a really new structure but there is a lot of historical interest
in the 1912 and 1937 wings. Both because they're attractive buildings on Henry Mall and there
were some fairly famous things that have happened in them, the Vitamin D research and so on.
So we decided to maintain those and build a research tower where you see it now up against
the 1985 wing. This was a really, really challenging project. The elm tree is something we tried
very hard to preserve through all of the construction projects since I've been here. That was actually
I think the very first stipulation in the program, that the elm tree would not be touched.
We also worked around the John Steuart Curry murals. Those were put in the 1937 wing I
think in the early 1940s and my understanding is that there are only 3 or 4 examples of
John Steuart murals still in existence and so when they came through they said that those
are probably worth well over 1 million dollars, but you can't really move them so we tried
to work very carefully around them.