PASADENA, Calif. - The California Institute of Technology has selected the partnership of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Gruen Associates to design the new Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology. OMA will lead the project and design the building. Joshua Ramus, OMA partner and head of its New York office, will lead the design team. Gruen Associates, which is based in Los Angeles, will provide executive architecture services...
OMA, led by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Rem Koolhaas, has designed a number of critically acclaimed buildings. Ramus and Koolhaas recently worked together on the Seattle Public Library and the Dallas Performing Arts Center's Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. Ramus, the Annenberg Center's principal in charge, has led the development of most of OMA's U.S. projects. He was project director for the design of the Guggenheim Las Vegas and its sister project, the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum, both of which opened in 2001. "We are delighted to have a design partner of the highest caliber in OMA. The combined intellect of Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus will help us realize the full potential of the physical vision for IST," said David Baltimore, president of Caltech. "I am confident that they will design a building that will encourage the effective exchange of ideas across academic disciplines."

Peter Schroder, professor of computer science and chairman of the Annenberg Center building committee noted, "OMAs approach to the design of a building is as exacting and thorough as our approach to science and engineering. We have a real meeting of the minds."

Gruen Associates also has numerous well-known buildings to its credit, including such Los Angeles-area projects as the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Convention Center renovation, and the Pacific Design Center.

Caltech will be represented on the project by Bonnie Khang-Keating, the Institute's head architect and director of the architecture and engineering department on campus.

The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology will serve as the interdisciplinary home for IST at Caltech. IST brings together people from different academic backgrounds to work on challenging problems that share a common theme of information. It is the first activity of its kind in the nation organized at an institutional level.

IST has launched four new research centers to answer the questions: What are the theoretical foundations of information? What are the fundamental physical limits to information? How does nature compute and communicate information? And how does information shape social systems? Other important questions will be pursued as IST evolves. A new information-oriented curriculum is being developed. Programs to engage academic, government, industry and community members are also planned for the new center.

Founded in 1989 by Walter H. Annenberg, the Annenberg Foundation exists to advance the public well-being through improved communication. As the principal means of achieving its goal, the foundation encourages the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge. .

MEDIA CONTACT: Jill Perry (626) 395-3226 wheel@caltech.edu

For more information about IST visit http://www.ist.caltech.edu/index.html

Visit the Caltech media relations web site: http://pr.caltech.edu/media