Grand Opening of CTI’s New Building

On Saturday, June 1st, the Director, Board of Trustees, and guests celebrated the official opening of the Center’s newly renovated building.

There was a palpable sense of excitement and expectation in the air among the guests who gathered for the opening ceremony in the new Atrium as it cast its signature light over all three floors of the magnificent new interior. There was also a sense of occasion as CTI opened a new chapter in its history, forty years after the original Luce Hall opened in 1984.

CTI’s Director William Storrar opened the event with thanks to all who had contributed to the successful renovation project. He saluted the Board of Trustees for its decision to invest in CTI’s future with a renovation of bold architectural ambition, and recorded the Center’s gratitude to the architects, project managers, and commercial builders for completing the project on time and in budget. Storrar noted that the architectural redesign of the Center’s interior was more than the refurbishment of a forty-year-old building:

This is nothing less than a new kind of research center for thinking in three dimensions: thinking virtually around the world, thinking face to face around our table, and thinking in public around questions of global concern. The Center is now a three- dimensional thinking sphere co-invented with the architects at Michael Graves.

Greetings were then brought by representatives of CTI’s local neighbors and international partners, including Princeton Municipality, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, and the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, Cambridge University. After the Director read on her behalf Marilynne Robinson’s specially commissioned address onWhy Theology Matters, a litany of dedication to the Center’s founding and enduring purpose was led by CTI Trustee Fred Anderson, a friend of the founder James McCord, and CTI Member Elise Edwards, a theologian and architect.The Board Chair Roy Lennox concluded the ceremony with a vote of thanks to all concerned, including the Director William Storrar, who received a standing ovation for the design brief and delivery of the new building.