Malcolm Henry Rice was born on September 14, 1898 in Cheshire, Connecticut. He began attending the Yale School of Architecture in 1916 but left in 1917 to serve in the submarine service during World War I. He returned in 1919 and completed his degree in the same year. He went on to study at the American Academy in Rome, Italy and at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris, France. When he returned to the United States in 1920, he married his wife, Helen, and went into private practice in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1929, he became a Resident Architect for John Russell Pope, where he designed such prominent structures as the U. S. Archives Building, the Jefferson Memorial, the American Pharmaceutical Building, and the Second Division War Memorial.

Rice first came to Knoxville in 1938 to choose marble for the National Gallery of Art. He moved to Knoxville in 1950 and was associated with Barber & McMurray Architects before coming to the University of Tennessee in 1953. By the time he retired in 1970, nearly every building on the Knoxville campus other than those in the immediate vicinity of the Hill had been constructed under his supervision. He also had a profound impact on the other UT campuses, including the Arnold Space Center, UT Martin, and UT Chattanooga. Rice died on January 19, 1997 in Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 98.