Cooper Union digs in for new building

On May 9, George Campbell Jr., president of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (bottom row, fourth from right), was joined by trustees, donors, students, faculty and alumni and a representative of the city’s Economic Development Corporation at a groundbreaking ceremony for the college’s new state-of-the-art academic building at 41 Cooper Square (Third Ave.) between Sixth and Seventh Sts. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne (bottom row, fifth from right) it will be the college’s first new academic building in 50 years and New York City’s first “green” academic laboratory building. The new nine-story, 175,000-square-foot building will have environmentally sensitive and technologically sophisticated laboratories, studios and classrooms, in addition to student and public spaces, including a 200-seat auditorium. The $150 million facility will house Cooper Union’s Albert Nerken School of Engineering — ranked among the top three undergraduate engineering schools in the nation — as well as provide institutional space for the faculty of humanities and social sciences, the School of Art and the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

A rendering of how part of the new Cooper Union building will look from Seventh St. looking south. At left is St. George’s Ukrainian Church.