…From the huge upper-floor window of the Lenfest Center for the Arts—the latest component of the new Columbia University campus in New York’s Manhattanville neighborhood—invited media and a smatter of prominent guests gazed out onto a sweeping view of upper Broadway, with Riverside Church and the dome of Grant’s Tomb in the distance…
The plan—devised by Paris- and Genoa, Italy-based Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill—encompasses 17 acres on the banks of the Hudson River, and already one chunk of the multi-building complex is in use: the Jerome L. Green Science Center, a 450,000-square foot research and laboratory facility, designed by RPBW with David Brody Bond serving as executive architect. Construction on the center completed late last year, and though it is already in use, it’s official opening is not scheduled to be held until May.