He’s the founder of media giant Bloomberg L.P. and the mayor of New York City. And now, Michael Bloomberg, a former trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study, has a hall named in his honor on the institute’s Einstein Drive campus.
Bloomberg Hall, dedicated Friday, will house the institute’s School of Natural Sciences and will provide a unique atmosphere in broad areas of theoretical physics, institute officials say.
The hall enables the School of Natural Sciences to be housed in one building for the first time.
Bloomberg Hall is a 30,000-square-foot complex of new construction and existing buildings dating from 1948 and 1953. The new complex was designed by Robert Geddes and KSS Architects.
The new building provides offices for faculty and visiting scientists, meeting rooms, two library reading rooms and a lecture hall that will seat 65 and has state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment.
"This is the first time since its founding in 1966 that everyone in the school is united in one building," said Professor Edward Witten, executive officer of the School of Natural Sciences. "Bloomberg Hall will facilitate both communication and collaboration."
The school has a permanent faculty of six, but about 50 visiting scholars who work in particle theory, condensed matter theory, quantum theory, quantum gravity, theoretical astrophysics, mathematical physics and computational physics work there.
An important part of Bloomberg Hall is work by the artist Mary Bliss, who designed a series of sculptures located in a grove of trees on the northern side of the building. Her sculpture uses reflective lines of water elements echoed at different scales and levels in the surrounding site.
Planning of the building was a collaboration between the architects and the faculty, who created specifications for the new structure and requested a building that evoked a "sense of collaboration, warmth and friendliness while facilitating quiet, individual study and research."
At the heart of the building is the new common rooms, the main entry and meeting place that will serve as gathering rooms, a coffee and tea room, mail room, browsing room and transparent garden room.
