The New School needs new design

With brass plates and irregular curtain walls, the New School’s student center will blight the surrounding neighborhood

The original rendering of the New School’s latest academic building
The original rendering of the New School’s latest academic building

From the November issue: Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion. NYU’s superblock redevelopment. Cornell’s new Roosevelt Island campus. If it seems as though this column has been devoted to discussing an abundance of new academic buildings recently, it may be because there are few areas of the New York real estate market in which the expansion has been so striking.

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Indeed, the growth of New York’s infrastructure for higher education is almost as energetic as its development of condos and hotels (see related story: Dorms and the city). And it is far more energetic than the expansion of its museums. [more]