Elizabeth Diller of the New York–based architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro will design Columbia Business School’s new facilities in Manhattanville. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, in consultation with Dean Glenn Hubbard and members of the Columbia Business School Board of Overseers, made the selection after hosting a competition featuring several of the world’s top architects.
Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, CC ’60, were the first architects to receive MacArthur Fellowships (commonly known as “genius grants”), and their career-long innovations earned them a major retrospective, The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, at the Whitney Museum in 2003. Charles Renfro joined Diller and Scofidio in leading the firm in 2004.
“Diller Scofidio + Renfro have demonstrated a great ability to translate ideas and concepts into boundary-stretching designs,” said Dean Hubbard. “This ideas-based approach is perfect for our needs — Liz Diller fully understands that our project is not about bricks and mortar, but rather about transforming the School and how we approach business education and business itself. Our new facilities will be specifically designed to foster collaboration, communication, and an education that reflects the way business is conducted in the 21st century.”
The selection of the architect for the Manhattanville facilities comes on the heels of the historic gift of $100 million from Henry Kravis ’69 toward the School’s new home. One of the two new buildings that Diller Scofidio + Renfro will design will be named The Henry R. Kravis Building in recognition of Mr. Kravis’s generosity.
Some of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s many notable works include the redesign of Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, the expansion of the Julliard School, the High Line park in New York City’s Meatpacking District, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and Switzerland’s Blur Building.
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