Prentis Hall is a historic building located on the Manhattanville campus of Columbia University at 632 West 125th Street. It houses the university's department of music and the Computer Music Center, as well as facilities for the School of the Arts. It is one of three historic buildings that survived in the university's Manhattanville plan, the others being the Studebaker Building and the Nash Building.
History
Prentis Hall was built from 1909 to 1911 as a pasteurization and bottling plant for the Sheffield Farms–Slawson–Decker Company. Designed by Frank A. Rooke, who designed several other buildings for Sheffield Farms, the building costed $500,000 to construct and could process 75,000 quarts of milk per day.[1] The building is noted for its façade of white glazed terracotta, which is ornately designed in a French style. Its walls are brick with steel frame covered with concrete. The entire building was built to be vermin-proof and fire-proof.[2] Its bottling room had a 27-foot ceiling with a skylight and large dome.[1]
Prentis Hall houses the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, the first programmable music synthesizer, which takes up an entire office wall. It was moved from RCA by to the university by Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky, who helped design the instrument, and pioneers of electronic music.
