The new faculty of architecture at the famous New York university, Cornell, is to be designed by Berlin practice Barkow Leibinger. The practice will take over from Steven Holl, who was the winner of the design competition and who initially was appointed for the project. Holl and the Cornell however were unable to carry forward together the project and decided by mutual agreement some months ago to terminate the contract.

This decision lead to the consideration of schemes by five practices: Tod Williams Billie Tsien and Associates, Tom Mayne of Morphosis, Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects, Allied Works Architecture and, of course, Barkow Leibinger Architects. “This is a small firm, but on my scale of one o 10, we are talking of between eight and nine”. Olpadwala then highlighted how the decision was a unanimous one on the part of the members of the selection committee, established following the departure of Holl. The new faculty of architecture will cost around 25 million dollars. Work is due to start in autumn 2004 at the earliest.

https://www.barkowleibinger.com/