The Bloembergen building is a small pavillion-like building in which there is room for 8 NMR installations. The technique of NMR spectroscopy at molecular level has inspired the architect to shape the material. The NMR equipment with the magnetic fields can be found at the heart of the building, all other functions are folded around the nucleus. For efficiency reasons there are no columns..
Padualaan 12, 3584 CH Utrecht
Ben van Berkel (UN-Studio - Van Berkel & Bos)
Contractor: Nelissen van Egteren, Utrecht and Hoofddorp
Constructor: ABT, Velp
Installations: Smits van Burgst, Zoetermeer
Design: 1997-1999
Construction: 2000
Officially opened: November 1st 2001
2,050 sqm, volume 10,000 m3
Budget: 5.5 M€
Nomination Rietveld Award 2003
The small pavilion-like laboratory building for the NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) Facility is located to the north-eats corner of the Kruytbuilding. The two-floor column free laboratory originally housed eight spectrometers (high-frequency magnets). This influenced decisively the spatial layout of the building, because the radiate force fields these magnets produce may not be disturbed.
The building consists of a single concrete surface, which continues from floor plane into the wall and ceiling. The flipping-over surfaces are constructive and are thus not traversed by a secondary support structure of columns. Windows with integrated sun shading, a silk-screened dot pattern, are placed in office- and laboratory spaces, allowing daylight to enter.
The Utrecht NMR facility makes its advanced NMR infrastructure and specialist expertise available to guest researchers.
Nicolaas Bloembergen (Mar. 11 1920 - Sep. 5 2017) studied physics at Utrecht University from 1938 - 1943. PhD at Leiden University. After the Second World War he left for Harvard where he founded the theory of NMR relaxation together with Purcell and Pound. In 1981 he was awarded the shared Nobel Prize for Physics for his contributions to the development of the laser (together with Schawlow and Siegbahn). Stayed at Harvard until his retirement in 1990.
The Bloembergen building is the only building of Utrecht University that was named after a scientist who was still alive at the time.
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