Celebrating a Transformative Milestone for NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

Published March 14, 2025

On Wednesday, March 12, 2025, NK Architects had the honor of attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service to celebrate the opening of the school’s new home at 105 East 17th Street in the heart of Union Square. For the first time in Wagner’s 87-year history, the school’s vibrant community can now come together under one roof in a 70,000-square-foot building, marking a transformative milestone for the institution.

This momentous occasion was underscored by powerful remarks from Wagner’s current Dean, Sherry Glied, Provost of NYU, Georgina Dopico, former Deans of Wagner, including Ellen Schall, Jo Ivey Boufford, and Bob Berne, along with former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams. Their remarks highlighted the significance of the newly designed space, not just for Wagner, but for the future of public service.

Our approach to the renovation of this legacy building, originally designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), preserves its mid-century modern roots and utilizes the building’s inherent features, including its high volumes and large windows, to create an environment rich in natural light and transparency. This is not only an aesthetic choice but an alignment with the values of openness and accessibility central to the mission of public service education.

Across the building’s three floors are twelve state-of-the-art classrooms, over 5,100 square feet of space dedicated to student life, including individual and group study rooms, event spaces for student groups, and lounge areas. In addition, over 3,100 square feet are designated for faculty convening space, including seminar rooms, pantries, a seminar room, a spacious lounge, and meeting rooms, all of which provide the resources needed for robust collaboration among Wagner’s faculty and staff. “The place has been buzzing every day,” Dean Glied said, reflecting on the vibrant energy of the student lounges and the growing sense of community that the space has already inspired.

Within the lower level of the building is a 3,300-square-foot multi-purpose event space, where the ribbon-cutting ceremony was held, and which hosts a range of public and private events from student-led conferences to panels presented by guest speakers. This versatile venue is a testament to Wagner’s commitment to creating a space that nurtures both formal and informal gatherings, enabling the exchange of ideas and collaboration on pressing social issues.

Our team’s primary goal during design development was to ensure the school’s physical environment supports the critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity essential to public service education, a point emphasized by an inspiring statement from the Provost of NYU, Georgina Dopico, “Being here, it's hard not to feel the sense of possibility, the energy and synergy of collaborative problem solving that defines Wagner. These classrooms, these gathering spaces, are not just brick and mortar or, I guess, concrete and glass, they're incubators for the ideas that will shape our future; and that future demands the very best of public service. In a moment when trust in institutions is faltering, when their very foundations are being tested, and the sense of a public good questioned, the work done here is not merely valuable, it is urgent. NYU understands this responsibility deeply and our motto, “A private university in the public service” speaks to it. It is a responsibility that Wagner embodies and fulfills through research and teaching and service, by educating and engaging the practitioners, the thinkers, the leaders who bridge divides and build a more just and equitable society, starting with the people in this room.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was not only a celebration of architectural achievement but also a moment to reflect on the history and significance of public service, as well as the crucial role of institutions like Wagner in shaping the future of cities, governance, and policy. In her closing remarks, Dean Gleid emphasized, 'We look to the future, and this building ushers in our next chapter. There’s lots of work to do, and the work of our students, faculty, graduates, and the staff who support them is on the front lines of impacting the public good. This extraordinary new space helps the Wagner community to do that.”