Steven Holl Architects has won the invited competition to design the new Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. Competing firms included MOS Architects, OMA, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The Institute, where Albert Einstein worked from 1933 until his death in 1955, has received funding for the building from businessman and philanthropist David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of The Carlyle Group.
At approximately 20,000 sf, the new Rubenstein Commons will be at the center of the IAS campus, providing a new forum that encourages interactions among the Institute’s diverse community of scholars. This is Steven Holl Architects’ second building in Princeton, NJ, with the Lewis Center for the Performing Arts at Princeton University, scheduled to open in 2017.
Sited along a major pedestrian route near the center of the academic campus, the Rubenstein Commons will support community and academic life on the IAS campus, promoting communication and collaboration through a variety of social and meeting spaces. Providing a communal and flexible gathering place for the Institute’s research community, the building will offer a space for the display of images and materials that tell the story of the Institute’s heritage, extraordinary scholarly community, as well as current and future efforts. Source and images by Steven Holl Architects.