The state-of-the-art Ezra Taft Benson Building, dedicated Friday by President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is one built to last "forever" both structurally and in the hearts of those who knew and loved President Benson, officials said.
The building, adjacent to the Joseph K. Nicholes chemical stores building, has 192,200 square feet with enough roof area to more than cover a footfall field.There's enough concrete in the building to lay a 43-mile sidewalk, 5 feet wide and 4 inches thick, from Provo to Salt Lake City.
"I don't know why you'd want to do that," quipped BYU President Rex E. Lee as he conducted the dedication ceremonies.
Besides President Hinckley, other LDS officials attending the ceremony included President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust of the church's First Presidency; as well as President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve; Elder David P. Haight, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, and Relief Society General President Elaine Jack.
Lee said it was very appropriate that the building be named after President Benson, "the only prophet to have graduated from Brigham Young University" and a leader who captured "succinctly what BYU is trying to do" - building real Latter-day Saint men and women, training them for life and teaching the responsibilities of citizenship, "learning by faith and by study."
Lee said 58 of President Benson's posterity have attended BYU, including the first member of the fourth generation, Kathryn Young, who enrolled as a freshman last semester.
President Monson remarked on President Benson's warmth and dedication to the "children" at BYU, not to be confused with "kids" at BYU. He said that when ground was broken for the Benson building, it was with the intention to build a "forever" building.
President Faust called it a marvelous building.
Guides showing off the modern, glossy building noted that the structure is built to withstand earthquakes, with pillars sunk far enough into the foundations to create a building that would sway as a unit with a temblor rather than shearing or cracking apart.
President Hinckley said the LDS Church has used tithing resources to construct the building, "dedicated to the cause of chemistry, to explore the great secrets of the mighty Creator.
"I doubt there is anything superior to it in all the world," he said. "I wonder what the Curies and the Pasteurs would have thought of this."
President Hinckley said it's important to have good facilities for study and especially for a science that affects lives in every way.
"Out of this and within these walls will come forth the applications and discoveries that will bless our lives," he said. "And then on Sundays, it becomes a place of worship dedicated to the science of theology."
The building contains 80 laboratories on one floor with the latest in equipment and supplies - work stations that can be raised or lowered to be accessible to wheelchair students, emergency showers that empty into buckets rather than drains to alleviate problems with evaporation in the drain pipes, individual access to gas lines and power supplies.
Wastewater from the building passes through a limestone filtration system before it enters the Provo city water system, a final treatment for any accidental acid waste.
There are 110 offices, three conference rooms with spectacular views of the Utah Valley, three large lecture halls equipped with the latest in electronic and media display equipment, 12 classrooms, storage docks and a graceful rotunda study area.
"The study of chemistry has changed dramatically over the past 40 years since the completion of the Eyring Science Center," said Francis R. Nordmeyer, chairman of the Department of Chemisty and Biochemistry. "Instead of working with large burettes and pipettes, today's analytical chemists rely on very elegant and sophisticated instruments. While we still cook and boil and distill, we have miniaturized it all. Instead of working with 50 milliliters of a compound, we now work with 5 milliliters or even less."