In the late 1960s, the school was faced with the desire for vigorous expansion but had little real estate available, and the high-rise library was the school's solution. Along with the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library (completed in 1964), the Graduate Center (completed in 1968), and the List Art Building (1971), it is one of four notable examples of brutalist architecture at Brown. The building was designed by Warner Burns Toan & Lunde architects, primarily by M. Rosaria Piomelli and Danforth Toan. The Sciences Library was built in 1971 during the height of a wave of brutalist architecture in the United States, opening three years after Boston City Hall (1968), one year after the Geisel Library (1970), and one year before Carney Library at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (1971). Classical High School in Providence was also completed in 1970 in a brutalist style.