As MIT celebrates the anniversary of its 1916 move from Boston to the Cambridge campus, the Department of Mathematics has moved back into a newly renovated Building 2. This whole-building renovation represents the first major renewal of the iconic 100-year-old Beaux Arts buildings designed by William Welles Bosworth at the heart of the MIT campus.

For the first time in the history of MIT renovations, a new floor has been added to a Main Group building. Building 2’s new fourth floor—which adds approximately 14,000 square feet of office, seminar, collaborative space, and building systems—was engineered carefully to alter the building’s exterior profile as little as possible. In an additional effort to maintain the historic integrity of the building, the renewal team carefully researched materials and methods to restore the original limestone façade and replicate and replace the 100-year-old windows. Exterior work has improved the energy performance of the building and the comfort of its occupants. The building has been certified LEED Gold.

At the end of the main corridor on each floor, interior walls have been removed to provide added daylight and reveal views of the river through the renovated windows. All first-floor classrooms have been renovated and equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual systems, including 2-190, now a tiered lecture hall. Academic offices are now clustered around shared discussion rooms, and group meeting spaces are strategically placed along corridors, in both cases to encourage and support collaboration and interdisciplinary cooperation.

“It is wonderful to return home to Building 2,” says Tom Mrowka, head of the department. “The renovation manages to retain the quiet majesty of the Main Group while beautifully and tastefully updating it, capping it all off with amazing new space on the fourth floor.”

A new art installation of winding polyhedra by Sir Antony Gormley, titled The CHORD, spans the four-story height of the north stair lobby.