John Greene Taylor Endowment for Collections Enhancement

The John Greene Taylor Endowment for Collections Enhancement—established by Greene's grandson, John Greene Taylor—supports the Architecture and Planning Library and the Alexander Architectural Archives by providing funds for collection cataloging, digitization, acquisition and outreach, including exhibitions and publications. Graduate Research Assistants are often hired to conduct collections enhancement work, providing much sought after experiential learning. Endowments not only have a direct impact on collections stewardship, but also the student experience in higher education.

As an endowment kick-off project, in 1999 inaugural funds focused on hiring School of Architecture students and procuring archival supplies to process all records related to Herbert M. Greene located at the Alexander. These spanned over multiple archival collections. John Greene Taylor understood the value of archival work necessary to enable access and preservation of research collections. Without processing, these records would not be available for research, innovative scholarship or enjoyment by our public.

Architectural archives provide access to records that support sensitive preservation and restoration of extant buildings, and meritorious recognition as seen through Greene's buildings listed on the National Register for Historic Places.

Celebration through Exhibition

An exhibition,The Architectural Legacy of Herbert Miller Greene, featuring architectural drawings and archival material highlighting Greene's groundbreaking work, grew out of this first processing project and was on view in the Architecture and Planning Library at The University of Texas in 2005. Terri Asendorf, a graduate student in Historic Preservation, was hired to research, develop, write and curate the exhibition. The endowment provided an opportunity to conduct primary research on this early Texas architect, for which, up to this point had not been compiled or published. She also produced the most extensive and authoritative project list and bibliography compiled on Herbert M. Greene to date.

In celebration, an exhibition opening reception was held in the Architecture and Planning Library on September 2, 2005. At the reception, Mr. John Greene Taylor's generosity was recognized by then Vice-Provost and University of Texas Libraries Director Fred Heath and School of Architecture Dean Frederick Steiner.

Herbert Miller Greene built more than ninety projects throughout Texas and other U.S. cities, and founded one of the oldest continuously-operating architectural firms in Texas. This site offers a continuation of the original exhibition, celebrating of the John Greene Taylor Endowment for Collections Enhancement and recognizing the importance of Herbert Miller Greene's contributions to the field of architecture.

Images depicted in this exhibit represent a variety of Greene's projects. Unless otherwise noted, materials are from collections in the Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries.

In late 2021, efforts began to migrate the original digital exhibit of 2005 to a new hosting platform, Spotlight. This site was authored in the spring of 2022 under the care and curation of Alison Brislin.