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THE COOPER UNION NAMES NEW YORK—December 10, 2003—The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art today announced that Thom Mayne, of the California-based architecture firm, Morphosis, has been chosen to design the college’s new academic building, a nine story full-block building to be located on the east side of Third Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets. This will be Mayne’s first large-scale project in New York City. One of four international finalists for the project, Mayne was chosen through a rigorous selection process rather than a design competition. After a wide-ranging call for nominations, the Architect Selection Committee narrowed an initial slate of 150 nominees to 29 who were sent a Request for Qualifications. Of the respondents, seven were asked to respond to a Request for Proposal (RFP) detailing their approach to designing the new building. The committee then conducted in-depth interviews with four finalists and visited various project sites before making its recommendations. "We are enormously pleased to have an architect of Thom Mayne’s prodigious talent to design the college’s new academic building," said George Campbell, The Cooper Union’s president. "His architectural philosophy integrates tradition and innovation, which are the qualities that must converge in this new building. Our goal is to produce a building that will have the same kind of impact that the Foundation Building had on higher education in 1859 and that our Chrysler Building had on New York architecture in the 1930s. Thom Mayne thoroughly grasped The Cooper Union's values, its need for the building to be reconfigurable as pedagogical objectives evolve, and the dramatic urban context of the site. Mayne has demonstrated leadership not only in architecture, but in the entire process of making buildings - from an organic approach to sustainability, to the integration of engineering principles – and to educating the next generation." Morphosis will collaborate with Gruzen Samton LLP as its Associate Architect in New York City. Design will begin immediately and The Cooper Union hopes to begin construction in early 2006. When the building is completed – 18 months to two years later – it will house the Albert Nerken School of Engineering, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and some facilities of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and the School of Art. The academic building is the linchpin of a multi-year, three building master plan developed by Cooper Union to ensure both academic excellence and financial stability into the future. In addition to the technologically advanced building that is critical to maintaining the institution’s top-ranked college of engineering, Cooper Union will construct two other buildings to generate a long-term, stable stream of income. Funds from the two buildings - one commercial, one residential - will support Cooper Union’s tradition of granting a full-tuition scholarship to every undergraduate student accepted. The residential building will be developed by The Related Companies, which has leased the former parking lot site at 26 Astor Place from Cooper Union and engaged the internationally renowned firm of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates as architects. Once the academic building is occupied, Cooper Union will lease its current engineering building site at 51 Astor Place to a developer for design and construction of a mixed-use, primarily commercial facility – with space for some Cooper Union uses. The college intends that the latter building attract companies that have synergy with its academic programs and provide opportunities for research and creative ventures in collaboration with faculty and students. Thom Mayne said, "It is especially meaningful and important to me to be commissioned to do our first New York building for the Cooper Union. There is a synergy between the values of Morphosis and those of the Cooper Union that will result in the creation of an iconographic building that represents the future of the institution and that adds to the character and quality of such an important neighborhood. I am truly humbled to be offered the opportunity to contribute something lasting and valuable to the world’s greatest city." Thom Mayne received his BA from the University of Southern California in 1968. While there, he met five other students and educators with whom he would later create the Southern California Institute of Architecture, or SCI-Arc. In 1978 he received his Master of Architecture from Harvard University. He has held teaching positions at Columbia University, Harvard University (Elliot Noyes Chair, 1998), Yale University (Eliel Saarinen Chair, 1991), the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and he has been a visiting professor at universities around the world. He currently holds a tenured faculty position at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. His honors include the Rome Prize Fellowship (1987), the 2000 AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture and the Chrysler Design Award in 2001. Principal-in-charge and lead designer, Mayne founded Morphosis Architects in 1972 with the goal of developing an architectural style that would surpass the boundaries of traditional forms and materials. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture Awards and 52 AIA Awards, and has been the subject of group and solo exhibitions worldwide. Morphosis buildings and projects have been the subject of 21 monographs including a book on the firm's work published by Phaidon in 2003. Within the last five years, Morphosis completed the renowned Diamond Ranch High School, which architecture critic Herbert Muschamp referred to as "clearly the best American building of the year," and the University of Toronto Graduate Student Housing. Current projects include the University of Cincinnati Student Center, the Caltrans Headquarters Building, and the technologically advanced NOAA Satellite Operation Control Center. Mayne, who has significant experience designing green buildings, is widely acclaimed for integrating the elements of environmentally conscious buildings with his progressive design style. Mayne will work within the zoning envelope and design guidelines developed by The Cooper Union, city government and the community during the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The Cooper Union also announced the appointment of Horne Rose as Owner’s Representative to oversee development of the academic building. Jonathan F. P. Rose is principal of the firm. The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is one of the nation’s top ranked private colleges, offering degree programs in Art, Architecture, and Engineering. Founded by industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper, the College has provided a full-tuition scholarship, now valued at $27,000 per year, to every accepted student since 1859. |