Rensselaer Polytechnic opens $200 million facility

On a hillside overlooking Troy, N.Y., the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has erected a technological pleasure dome for the mind and senses. Eight years and $200 million in the making, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, or Empac, resembles an enormous 1950s-era television set. But inside are not old-fashioned vacuum tubes but the stuff of 21st-century high-tech dreams dedicated to the marriage of art and science as it has never been done before, its creators say--220,000 square feet of theaters, studios and work spaces hooked to supercomputers. The architect is Nicolas Grimshaw & Partners.

To read The New York Times article, click here.