The only Art Deco building on campus, Darby Gymnasium is on Eighth Avenue across the street from the Noyce Science Center. A parking lot east of Darby is available for visitors.

Opened in 1943 during World War II, the gymnasium was named for John Frederick Darby of the Class of 1895 (whose will in 1953 provided the College with $5 million, one of the largest bequests ever received at Grinnell). Darby Gymnasium was erected to fill the void in physical education facilities after a fire leveled the Carrie Rand Gymnasium for Women in December 1939. The female students were shifted to the Men's Gymnasium, which stood between what is now the Noyce Science Center and A.R.H., and the building was renamed the Women's Gymnasium.

The men were given a new building with modern equipment, training resources, and recreational areas. Designed by Proudfoot, Rawson, Brooks, and Borg of Des Moines, the new facility was immediately impressed into military service, providing physical education resources and an assembly area for the hundreds of men on campus in the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943-44. In its later years, Darby was a resource for both men and women. The structure reflects the Art Deco style in its curvilinear upper section and in the symmetrical array of windows and zigzag decoration on the curved bands above the windows. The roof is supported by a complex method called the Philippine Truss System. Besides its physical education and sports uses, the building has been the site of commencement ceremonies, lectures, conferences, dances, concerts, and other events. Today it continues to be used for basketball games, but almost all other recreational and sports functions have been conducted in the Physical Education Complex since 1971.

Beginning in 1974, Darby's most important use has been as headquarters for the College's computer systems. The building houses the campus e-mail and network servers, ancillary equipment and devices, as well as offices for many computing staff. Access for all members of the campus community is made through over 1,900 terminals, personal computers, and work stations located throughout the campus. A fiber-optic system connects computing communications in all of the academic buildings.

The computer facility in Darby is designated the Robert N. Noyce Computer Center in honor of the 1949 graduate who invented the process that made the microchip possible and thus initiated the world wide revolution in electronic communication. Robert Noyce (whose name also graces the Noyce Science Center) was co-founder of Intel Corporation, a member and past president of the Grinnell College Board of Trustees, and a benefactor of great generosity on the College's behalf.