EPFL Learning Center | |
---|---|
Alternative names | Rolex Learning Center Bibliothèque de l'EPFL |
General information | |
Type | Library, workspaces, multi-purpose hall "Forum Rolex", café, food court, restaurant, offices, bookshop and parking |
Location | Lausanne campus |
Town or city | Écublens, Lausanne |
Opened | 22 February 2010 [1] |
Inaugurated | 27 May 2010 [1] |
Cost | 110 million CHF [1] |
Owner | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 1 + basement |
Floor area | 37,000 m2 [1] |
Grounds | 20,000 m2 (166.5 m × 121.5 m) [1] |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA) |
Known for | Innovative architecture: large one-room space, floor undulations and curved patios |
Website | |
rolexlearningcenter.epfl.ch |
The Rolex Learning Center is a public library and the main research library of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Designed by the winners of 2010 Pritzker Prize, Japanese-duo SANAA, it was inaugurated on 22 February 2010. [2]
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners of the Tokyo-based design firm SANAA, were selected as the lead architects in EPFL's international competition in December 2004. The team was selected among famous architects, including Pritzker Prize Laureates such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Ábalos & Herreros and Xaveer De Geyter.
The construction took place between 2007 and 2009. It cost 110 million Swiss francs and was funded by the Swiss government as well as by private sponsors, Rolex, Logitech, Bouygues Construction, Crédit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis and SICPA. [1]
The building opened on 22 February 2010 and was inaugurated on 27 May 2010. [1]
The main library, containing 500,000 printed works, is one of the largest scientific collections in Europe; four large study areas can accommodate 860 students with office space for over 100 EPFL and other employees; a multimedia library will give access to 10,000 online journals and 17,000 e-books, with advanced lending machines and systems for bibliographic search; a study center for use by postgraduate researchers will provide access to the universityʼs major archive and research collection, and there are teaching areas including ten "bubbles" for seminars, group work and other meetings and a Language and Multimedia Center and associated administration offices.
On 2 April 2015, the press conference of Federica Mogherini (High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs) and Mohammad Javad Zarif (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran) following the negotiations of the ministers of foreign affairs of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, China, the European Union and Iran for a Comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear programme (in the previous days at the Beau-Rivage Palace) was held in the Learning Center. [3] [4]
Part of the 2014 film Love Is the Perfect Crime was filmed at the EPFL Learning Center. [5]
Lausanne is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French-speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and facing the French town of Évian-les-Bains across the lake. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, the nearest major city.
The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland. Founded in 1969 with the mission to "train talented engineers in Switzerland" and inspired by the École Centrale Paris, EPFL has placed itself as a leading research university specializing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and natural sciences.
The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities in the world to be in continuous operation. As of fall 2017, about 15,000 students and 3,300 employees studied and worked at the university. Approximately 1,500 international students attend the university, which has a wide curriculum including exchange programs with other universities.
EPFL is the official name of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, a public research university in Switzerland.
Patrick Aebischer has been the president of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) from 17 March 2000 to 31 December 2016. He is also a professor in neuroscience and head of the Neurodegenerative Disease Laboratory at the EPFL.
The Idiap Research Institute is a semi-private non-profit research institute at Martigny in the canton of Valais, in south-western Switzerland. It conducts research in the areas of speech processing, computer vision, information retrieval, biometric authentication, multimodal interaction and machine learning. The institute is affiliated with the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and with the Université de Genève.
Kazuyo Sejima is a Japanese architect and director of her own firm, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. In 1995, she co-founded the firm SANAA. In 2010, Sejima was the second woman to receive the Pritzker Prize, which was awarded jointly with Nishizawa. They were only the second partnership to be honored with this prize.
The Beau-Rivage Palace is a historical luxury five-star hotel in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is located in Ouchy, on the shores of Lake Léman.
SANAA is an architectural firm based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1995 by architects Kazuyo Sejima (1956–) and Ryue Nishizawa (1966–), who were awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2010. Notable works include the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion in Toledo, Ohio; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Rolex Learning Center at the EPFL in Lausanne; the Serpentine Pavilion in London; the Christian Dior Building in Omotesandō, Tokyo; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa; the Louvre-Lens Museum in France; and the Bocconi New Campus in Milan.
Matthias Finger is Swiss and French political and educational scientist. He was a professor of management of network industries at EPFL.
Denis Duboule is a Swiss-French biologist. He earned his PhD in Biology in 1984 and is currently Professor of Developmental Genetics and Genomics at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and at the Department of Genetics and Evolution of the University of Geneva. Since 2001, he is the Director of the Swiss National Research Center "Frontiers in Genetics" and since 2017, he is also a professor at the Collège de France. He has notably worked on Hox genes, a group of genes involved in the formation of the body plan and of the limbs.
The SwissTech Convention Center is a conference centre on the campus of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
The Lausanne campus or Dorigny university campus is a large area in Switzerland where the University of Lausanne (UNIL), the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and several other institutions are located. It is in Dorigny, towards the west of Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva. The site is about 2.2 kilometres wide and 31,000 people study and work there.
The EPFL Press, formerly Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes (PPUR), is a Swiss independent scientific publishing house and a university press affiliated with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. EPFL Press was founded in 1980 and is based on the EPFL campus, in the Rolex Learning Center.
Inès Lamunière, is a Swiss architect, b. 25 October 1954, Geneva, Switzerland.
The Health Valley covers the Western Switzerland region, where the life sciences sector extends from Geneva to Bern, including the seven cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Valais and Vaud. This cluster presents a critical mass of 1,000 companies, research centers and innovation support structures, representing today more than 25,000 employees. The Health Valley strives to animate the life sciences ecosystem of the region, by establishing thriving bridges between its ambassadors.
Tej Tadi is the CEO of MindMaze, a company that generates 30M a year in revenue from its computing platform. The company is valued at over $1.6 billion.
Jacques Dubochet is a retired Swiss biophysicist. He is a former researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and an honorary professor of biophysics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Jean-Luc Sandoz is a French-Swiss engineer and an expert in wood construction. He is the founder of several companies in the field of engineering, industrialization, construction and expertise, all related to wood. Formerly, he was a professor and lecturer at EPFL.
Mario El-Khoury is a Lebanese-Swiss engineer, cited as a Digital Shaper by the economic magazine Bilanz in 2020, and among the 100 most important personalities of the Swiss economy in 2019 and 2020.