Overview
- The centre was officially inaugurated by King Charles III on Friday, July 10, when he unveiled a plaque, met Chancellor Lord William Hague and donor Stephen Schwarzman, and heard a school choir perform.
- Stephen Schwarzman’s £185 million donation funded what Oxford calls the single largest building project in its history and the centre has been in practical use since October 2025 with a public cultural programme running since April 2026.
- The building brings together seven humanities faculties, the Bodleian’s new Humanities library, the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, the Oxford Internet Institute and the Institute for Ethics in AI.
- Public-facing facilities include theatres, studios and a 500-seat Sohmen Concert Hall billed as the world’s first Passivhaus-standard concert venue, and the centre is already hosting community events such as the Leys Festival.
- Hours after the Oxford opening the King visited Harwell Campus to formally open the UK Space and Defence Gateway, a move that links humanities-led ethical inquiry into AI with national science, space and defence partnerships.