The Forum

The Forum sits on a sharp triangular site where Broadway meets West 125th Street, the third and final building Renzo Piano completed for Columbia University's Manhattanville campus. At street level, the building is almost entirely glass — a transparent café, information center, and open gathering space that spills out to the public sidewalk. Above it, a faceted volume clad in prefabricated concrete panels steps back floor by floor, cantilevering into a sharp peak that hovers over the main entrance.

Inside that concrete mass sits a 437-seat auditorium, wrapped in wood paneling for acoustics and shielded by a double layer of split-face and precast concrete that isolates it from the rumble of passing trains below. The contrast is the point: an open, glassy ground floor built for chance encounters and public life, topped by a solid, sculptural form built for focused listening. Completed in 2018, it was conceived as a literal and symbolic gathering place — the building where Columbia meets the neighborhood around it.