Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas and his colleagues will unveil the design for Milstein Hall, an expansion of the Cornell College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 4:30 p.m. in Bailey Hall on campus.

The architectural team, from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), will field questions from the audience following the presentation. The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 4 p.m.

The 43,000-square-foot Milstein Hall will be built directly behind the college's main building, Sibley Hall, and adjacent to the Foundry and Rand Hall. The new building will not only expand AAP facilities, but also create a vibrant public space north of Sibley. "We wanted to provide something currently absent from the college, a space with the scale to facilitate collaboration. We also saw an opportunity to reconnect the gorge to the north side of the Arts Quad," Koolhaas said.

The new two-story building will include studios, a library, a lobby/auditorium and other spaces with the flexibility to be reconfigured according to the needs of students and faculty. The structure will reflect the ambitious educational goals of the college.

Cornell began planning for the building in 2000 when New York City developer and philanthropist Paul Milstein and his family gave the college a $10 million gift. The decision to hire OMA -- which has offices in Rotterdam, New York and Beijing -- came about after two previous designs were considered and Cornell re-evaluated the functional and future goals of the project.

AAP finalized plans with OMA, a firm led by six partners including Koolhaas, to design Milstein Hall in January 2006. The university expects to submit the project to the city of Ithaca for environmental and site-plan review and other approvals in the near future. Groundbreaking is expected in 2007, and project costs have been approved at $40 million.

Koolhaas, who studied architecture at Cornell in the early '70s and was a guest lecturer in April 2005, also will present a model of the design Sept. 20 at a reception in New York City.