A new home for our institute
Topping-out ceremony for the new building of the Frankfurt MPI for Brain Research
Left: Gilles Laurent, Managing Director of the MPI for Brain Research, presents the new building. Right: Rendering of the new MPIBR building at Campus Riedberg, © Henn Architects.
On March 31, 2011, the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (MPIBR) celebrated, together with the MPG, with the craftsmen and with guests from politics, science and industry, the topping-out ceremony for its new building on the campus of the growing "Science City" at Frankfurt Riedberg. After welcome speeches by the Hessian Minister of Science Eva Kühne-Hörmann, the President of the Frankfurt Goethe University Werner Müller-Esterl, and the CEO of the architects´ office Gunter Henn, Gilles Laurent as the Managing Director of the Institute presented the new building.
In just 16 months (construction began in late November 2009) the shell of the three-storey building complex was finished, with a total floor area of nearly 20,000 square meters for innovative research laboratories, offices, a state-of-the-art animal house, workshops and scientific core facilities, and several communication and interaction areas. The construction costs amount to around 70 million Euro. The new building is expected to open in early Summer 2012. It will then replace the Institute´s current location in Frankfurt-Niederrad, which is taken over by the Ernst Strüngmann Institute (an institute cooperating with the MPG).
With four scientific departments, three planned Max Planck Research Groups and the scientific, technical and administrative service units the "new brain research" will provide space for approximately 250 employees. The present departments of Erin Schuman and Gilles Laurent set the focus of the Institute on the study of neural circuits. With the opening of the new building, Peter Mombaerts - now director at the neighbouring MPI of Biophysics - will also move his department to the MPI for Brain Research. With the relocation of the MPIBR to the Riedberg campus, the Frankfurt neuro-network that has already been established through cooperations with neuroscientists on site from the Goethe University and the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies (FIAS) will grow together even more.
Antje Berken