The earliest were learned societies devoted to the natural sciences, and for a time it was the state legislature's informal advisory body on agriculture.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the institute completed an extensive renovation in which the entrance building was constructed and new climate-controlled storage space for the collections was built.

On the southwest corner of the intersection is another Fuller brick Classical Revival building, the former Harmanus Bleecker Library.

The Alfred E. Smith State Office Building, a contributing property to the Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District south of Washington, towers over the block from the southeast where it faces the capitol.

To its east is a small lawn with mature trees and a walkway from the connecting building to the street, and a modern sculpture.

[4] The main building is a two-story brick structure with quoins and a limestone belt course and Renaissance Revival cornice.

[4] Four bays by three, the Rice Building sits on a raised stone foundation supporting golden Roman brick walls with quoined corners topped by a flat roof.

The first floor has round segmental-arched French windows with plain transoms; there are only three on the east elevation and the middle bay of the south is blind on all stories.

[4] The second story has double one-over-one double-hung sash windows everywhere except the middle two bays of the east side where they are single.

Above the windows the roofline is marked by an elaborate cornice with egg-and-dart molding and brackets holding up a wide overhanging eave.

They include salons with decorative wall art, carved mahogany fireplace mantels and the library's built-in bookcases.

[4] From its beginnings as a learned society that advised the state legislature on how to improve agricultural production, the Institute has evolved into a regional art museum.

[3][4] It was rejuvenated by a merger with the Albany Lyceum of Natural History, a year after that organization was founded in 1823 with Stephen Van Rensselaer, a former lieutenant governor then serving in Congress.

The members of the Lyceum were younger, and focused on the natural sciences, especially geology and mineralogy, paleontology, and astronomy.

In 1829 Joseph Henry, curator of the Institute's natural-history department, delivered his first paper on electromagnetism, an area in which he went on to make significant contributions.

By the following year the Institute's libraries had almost doubled in size when Governor DeWitt Clinton willed most of his books to it.

[3][4] Between 1834 and 1837, attendance declined at meetings due to the excessive output of the Institute's chief meteorologist, Matthew Henry Webster, who took enthusiastically to the duty of coordinating the state weather surveys for the Board of Regents.

[3][4] The Institute was again revived in 1851, when the new American Association for the Advancement of Science held its third annual meeting at the Albany Academy.

John V. L. Pruyn, a Congressman and officer of the New York Central Railroad, became president in 1857 and reoriented the society toward the public rather than the interests of its members.

The Albany Historical and Art Society (AHAS) was established afterward to maintain the collection and find a permanent home for it.

[3] By 1897 AHAS had raised enough money to buy a State Street building, on which it built an addition to house all its works.

The following year it absorbed the collection of the Albany Gallery of Fine Art, which had been opened in 1846 and closed within a decade due to declining subscriptions.

Its first exhibit, in 1909, was devoted to the tricentennial of Henry Hudson's exploration of the river named after him and the centennial of Robert Fulton's inaugural steamboat voyage up it.

[3] To clear more space for exhibits, the institute donated some of its books a block away to the newly built Harmanus Bleecker Library in 1924.

Those outreach programs, such as tours, school trips and performances, continued through the Great Depression of the next decade, helping establish the institute as a regional museum.

[3] As the next decade dawned and war began, John Davis Hatch came from the Art Institute of Seattle to take over as AIHA director.

It renovated the 1895 Beaux-Arts home designed by Richard Morris Hunt, architect of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and several mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, in the style of a 15th-century Italian palazzo[4] for use both as offices and gallery space.

As director, Rice would head an acquisition effort that grew the special collections to over a million items before he stepped down in 1986.

Sculptor George Rickey donated one of his works, Etoile Variation V, to be permanently installed in the entrance atrium.

The money was raised via public and private grants and the museum closed in 1999, moving to temporary quarters on State Street.