Osborn Memorial Lab

Osborn Memorial Laboratories were completed in 1913 as Yale’s central home for the biological sciences, housing zoology and botany in twin wings along Sachem and Prospect Streets. Designed by noted architect Charles C. Haight, the masonry complex sits at the edge of the former Hillhouse estate, anchoring what later became known as Science Hill. Its carriage-arch entrance once led to a library with a faux-sky ceiling, and over the decades the building’s laboratories and offices have been repeatedly reconfigured as Yale’s scientific needs evolved. The facility has hosted landmark work by scholars such as Joshua Lederberg and G. Evelyn Hutchinson, and today it is primarily home to the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Though its towers are no longer in active use, Osborn Memorial Laboratories remain a historic cornerstone of Yale’s scientific campus.