{"id":36754,"date":"2023-01-29T00:44:33","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T05:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/?p=36754"},"modified":"2023-01-30T22:51:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T03:51:25","slug":"at-columbias-600-million-business-school-time-to-rethink-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.greenmoney.com\/2025\/at-columbias-600-million-business-school-time-to-rethink-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"At Columbia\u2019s $600 Million Business School, Time to Rethink Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
>> Back to February 2023 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n
Above: View of Kravis Hall and the lawn at Columbia Business School, seen against the Hudson River and the Riverside Drive Viaduct. The facade is adorned with \u201cbandages\u201d of translucent glass, indicating professors\u2019 offices. Photo by <\/span>Zack DeZon for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

On the developing Manhattanville campus, the architecture of Diller Scofidio + Renfro reinforces a social movement in business education to do good as well as make money.<\/span><\/h3>\n

One zigs, the other zags. One teases the passer-by with bands of translucent glass wrapping a core of clear windows; the other, with floors angled in and out \u2014 a gentle architectural mambo. The pair of buildings that comprise Columbia University\u2019s new business school, on its growing Manhattanville campus, exude a nervous off-kilter energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 11-story Henry R. Kravis Hall, named for the co-founder of the private equity firm KKR, rises in front of the delicate steel-arched viaduct carrying Riverside Drive. It is separated from an eight-story structure named for the entertainment mogul David Geffen by a circle of grass, trees and benches embedded in a plaza. The ensemble joins a sleek new campus that so far includes a neuroscience research center, an arts center, and a think-tank-style building, called The Forum, devoted to academic discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the real story of the business buildings lies within. Appearing wraithlike behind the glass, stairways in both wind over and around themselves like crinkly strands of DNA as they ascend full height. These are what the architects,\u00a0<\/span>Diller Scofidio + Renfro,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0working with the\u00a0<\/span>FxCollaborative architecture firm,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0call \u201cnetwork\u201d stairs. Twisting through ceiling surfaces curved and warped to accommodate them, they beg to be used. Their design reflects the close fit of the architecture to person-to-person connection and intensified interaction \u2014 what the school\u2019s leadership sees as essential to the sprawling aspirations it has for its graduates to do good as they make money.<\/span><\/p>\n

The design of the complex just blocks north of Columbia\u2019s main Morningside Heights campus coincided with business schools around the country coming to terms with a rising chorus of criticism that companies are too predatory, exploitative and monopolistic, and that business education had to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Geffen
View of Geffen Hall and the lawn at Columbia Business School, where floors protrude in a gentle architectural mambo. Photo by Zack DeZon for The New York Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe forces at work in the world are necessarily causing a rethinking of the foundations of the economic system we\u2019ve had,\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span>Lee C. Bollinger,\u00a0<\/span><\/a>Columbia\u2019s president, said in an interview. <\/span>\u201cClimate change, issues of social justice and what globalization means for societies \u2014 all of these are raising profound questions about the nature of what the future can be.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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