After more than three and a half years of construction, the Northwest Corner Building officially opened on Friday morning.
At a ceremony on the building’s ground floor attended by faculty, administrators, and architects, University President Lee Bollinger cut a blue ribbon and opened up a staircase to the rest of the interdisciplinary science center. In a speech before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Bollinger emphasized that the opening of the building marked the completion of the Morningside Heights campus.
“This is a very important moment, but it’s also an historic moment for the University,” Bollinger said.
Six professors from different science departments have already moved into the building, which sits at the corner of Broadway and 120th Street, and five more are scheduled to make the move. Administrators have said that the remaining 10 spots will be filled by new hires.
Biology professor Brent Stockwell,—who will move into the building in February—spoke at the ceremony as well, saying that the building will provide research groups with the technology to explore fields such as new electronic materials and the human brain. He also praised the building’s integrated laboratory space, which he said will help bring together researchers from different departments.
He added that interdisciplinary research is important for solving the world’s biggest problems because “the solutions to these problems don’t often fall into traditional disciplinary boundaries.”
“Success here could change the paradigm for organizing basic science and engineering departments and could have ramifications far beyond our campus,” he added.
He called the building “a link to the new campus in Manhattanville,” noting that it physically looks towards the planned campus and that it will foster research related to one of the first buildings that will be completed in Manhattanville—the Mind, Brain, and Behavior building.
Bollinger also praised the new building’s architecture—which is markedly different from that of Pupin Hall and Chandler Hall, its neighbors—and its lead designer, José Rafael Moneo. At a reception after the ceremony, Nicholas Dirks, executive vice president for arts and sciences, called the building “the most beautiful science building I’ve ever seen.”
Moneo said at the reception that seeing the building finally complete was bittersweet for him.
“I’m very happy because, for an architect, it’s the greatest thing to be able to do something in New York, and even more for an institution like Columbia,” he said. “But it’s also true that once you finish a building, a certain sadness comes together.”
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