$240 million Stephen A. Schwarzman gift launches university’s new Humanities Hub with major cultural program
Oxford University will open the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities on October 13, 2025, marking the culmination of a landmark $240 million gift from American philanthropist and businessman Stephen A. Schwarzman.
The donation is the most significant single gift to the university in modern times, with Schwarzman’s total support for the project now standing at $240 million.
Hopkins Architects has designed the center as a significant cultural campus within Oxford’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
The new facility will, for the first time, bring together Oxford’s Humanities faculties—ranging from English and History to Music, Philosophy, and Theology—under one roof.
It will also house the Institute for Ethics in AI, established in 2019 as part of the project’s launch, alongside the Oxford Internet Institute and the Bodleian Humanities Library.
The state-of-the-art academic and performance spaces include the 500-seat Sohmen Concert Hall, a 250-seat theater, an immersive black box performance space, a dance studio, a cinema, exhibition galleries, and a museum to showcase the Bate Collection of historic musical instruments.
A café, bar, and landscaped gardens will complete the new hub.
University leaders have framed the Schwarzman Centre as both an academic and public-facing institution. Professor Irene Tracey, Oxford’s vice-chancellor, described it as a building that will “enable us all to come together in a new dialogue in one extraordinary building befitting of this great and historic university and city.”
Lord Hague of Richmond, Oxford’s Chancellor, called Schwarzman’s gift “an enormous vote of confidence in the humanities,” emphasizing the value of humanistic perspectives in addressing challenges from AI and human rights to environmental issues.
Schwarzman himself underscored the urgency of these fields in today’s world.
“When announcing this gift in 2019, I shared my belief that the study of the humanities and ethics was critical to addressing some of the most fundamental questions society faced, including the impacts of AI.
The pace of change since then has only made those questions more urgent and reinforced the importance of Oxford’s global leadership in navigating today’s dynamic world,” he said.
The Centre will extend its reach beyond academia through a public cultural program, launching on April 25–26, 2026, with a celebratory free weekend of performances and activities for all ages.
Groups such as ZooNation, Scottish Ensemble, and Justice in Motion will headline the opening festivities. The inaugural season will also feature projects by acclaimed designers Es Devlin and Edmund de Waal, as well as composer Nico Muhly, with performances by Sigur Rós, the BBC Singers, and contemporary dance companies including Body Politic.
With its integration of academic, research, and cultural functions, the Schwarzman Centre is poised to become a new intellectual and artistic landmark for Oxford and beyond, creating a platform where world-class research and creativity meet public engagement for generations to come.