Jonsson Engineering Center
Encyclopedia
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
in Troy
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. It is named for J. Erik Jonsson
J. Erik Jonsson
John Erik Jonsson was a co-founder and former president of Texas Instruments Incorporated. A skillful businessman, he became mayor of Dallas, a major factor in the creation of DFW airport and a philanthropist in later years....
and was dedicated on 7 October 1977.
Background on J. Erik Jonsson
J. Erik JonssonJ. Erik Jonsson
John Erik Jonsson was a co-founder and former president of Texas Instruments Incorporated. A skillful businessman, he became mayor of Dallas, a major factor in the creation of DFW airport and a philanthropist in later years....
graduated from Rensselaer in 1922. He was a co-founder of Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
, former mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Dallas, TX, and one of Rensselaer's most generous benefactors. The Jonsson-Rowland Science Center, for which he provided funding, opened on the Rensselaer campus in 1961. It shares his name with that of Henry A. Rowland, Class of 1870, physicist and first president of the American Physical Society
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
. http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/images/rpi/RPI-Name-Game.php Jonsson provided $2,600,000 toward the construction of the Jonsson Engineering Center. http://www.deltos.com/reference/not-handbook/NtRH.html
Planning
In February 1974 plans for a new engineering center were made public. An analysis of the Russell Sage Laboratory, Troy Building and Ricketts Building was made by the firm of Levatich, Miller & Hoffman (Peter S. Levatich, Class of 1955). They recommended two options:- demolish the Troy Building and construct a new building in its place
- demolish the Troy Building and link the Russell Sage Laboratory and the Ricketts Building together
In the spring of 1974, the first option was approved and the Troy Building was scheduled for demolition during the summer.
In June 1974, the Board of Trustees considered the situation and decided to build a brand new building between the Greene Building
Greene Building, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The Greene Building is home of the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . Named for Benjamin Franklin Greene, it has its own library for use by the architecture students. The second floor contains a gallery for students’ work, the basement third, and fourth floors contain...
and the Communication Center, which is now known as the Darrin Communications Center.
In the Fall of 1974, a model of the new seven story engineering center was presented. http://www.lib.rpi.edu/Archives/buildings/jec.html
On 4 March 1975, the initial cost estimate for the building was $11,808,100. Jonsson provided $2,600,000 and the New York State Dormitory Fund provided some funds. A thirty year bond was taken to cover most of the cost, which resulted in annual payments by Rensselaer of $202,000. http://www.deltos.com/reference/not-handbook/NtRH.html The final cost of the building was $17,800,000.http://www.lib.rpi.edu/Archives/buildings/jec.html
Construction
A unique ground breaking ceremony took place on April 18, 1975. An underground explosion on the nearby '86 field was triggered by a long distance phone call placed by Margaret Jonsson, J. Erik Jonsson's wife, from Dallas, Texas. http://www.lib.rpi.edu/Archives/buildings/jec.htmlConstruction for the building progressed smoothly and was completed on schedule in the fall of 1977. During construction, the '86 Field was referred to as the 43 Field since one-half of it was used as a staging area. Formal dedication of the Jonsson Engineering Center took place on October 7, 1977. http://www.lib.rpi.edu/Archives/buildings/jec.html
Facilities
Each floor of the building is dedicated to a different discipline of engineering and contains many major research facilities and a large number of academic classrooms. The ground floor contains classrooms, administrative offices and a lounge. The basement contains several laboratories, including the mechatronicsMechatronics
Mechatronics is the combination of mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, computer engineering, software engineering, control engineering, and systems design engineering in order to design, and manufacture useful products. Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary field of engineering, that is...
lab and the geotechnical centrifuge research center. The O.T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory in the former high bay area of the JEC provides undergraduate students from multiple engineering disciplines, management, humanities, architecture, and science with a facility and the resources to work together on challenging, real-world problems. http://www.rpi.edu/virtual_tour/jonsson_ctr.html. One of RPI's sub-sonic wind tunnels is also located in the JEC.