The Marching Cobras, a local step and drumming squad, danced through the halls of the new Forum building on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus on Wednesday with an inaugural performance to celebrate the opening of the new building – which will also serve as the home for Columbia World Projects (CWP) and office space for the Obama Foundation Scholars program, part of CWP.

"All of us at Columbia World Projects are thrilled to be in this beautiful new building,” the initiative’s director, Nick Lemann said in a statement: “CWP's mission is to help  connect university research and knowledge to the world of action. The Forum, with its generous convening spaces, is the perfect location for us to do this."

The architect Renzo Piano, whose Building Workshop designed three buildings on Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus, spoke at the event. The Forum is the final piece in a tripartite complex designed by Mr. Piano that also includes Columbia’s Lenfest Center for the Arts and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center. In his remarks, Mr. Piano described his vision for the campus cluster: “We think of these buildings as machines – new kinds of machines for doing scientific research, for presenting the arts, and now, with The Forum, for bringing people together and communicating.”

In addition to housing Columbia World Projects, the multipurpose Forum building will house an office for Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger and a 430-seat auditorium. The building’s glass-fronted ground floor will be used for a variety of university events, including performances and pop-up exhibitions.

In remarks at the building’s opening President Bollinger said that the Forum “reflects not only modern design, but modern values about how we can mutually benefit our local communities – defined by a visual openness and civic function that welcomes everyone in to participate in what only a truly great university can do.”

The building, President Bollinger added, “makes it possible for us to be a part of something larger than ourselves.”