On Friday 10 July 2026, His Majesty King Charles III officially opened the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities at the University of Oxford, unveiling a commemorative plaque to mark the occasion. The Centre is the largest single building project ever undertaken by the University, and CPC Project Services acted as the client-side Project Manager.
The King was welcomed by the University’s Chancellor, The Rt Hon Lord Hague of Richmond, Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey, and Stephen and Christine Schwarzman, whose £185m donation made the Centre possible.
A choir of secondary school children from schools across Oxfordshire performed Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino to mark His Majesty’s arrival. The King then toured the facility, including the 500-seat Sohmen Concert Hall — the world’s first Passivhaus-certified concert hall — and was shown historic instruments from the University’s Bate Collection alongside a rare Bach manuscript from the Bodleian Library.
Certified Passivhaus Classic in December 2025, the Centre is also England’s largest Passivhaus scheme and Europe’s largest Passivhaus university building.
During the visit The King met CPC’s project team and the wider project and construction teams, as well as academics from the humanities faculties and representatives of the community organisations and cultural partners now using the building.
Speaking at the unveiling, The King described the Centre as a remarkable building, noting his surprise that it brings all of Oxford’s humanities departments together in one place. The Centre unites nine faculties and institutes — previously dispersed across 26 buildings — together with seven Bodleian collections and four world-class performance venues, on a constrained site in the heart of a historic city.
CPC has been involved since 2019, working alongside the University’s Capital Projects team from concept design through planning and construction to handover. The building was handed over a week early and on budget, with no compromise to the brief.
Jonathan Odell, Partner at CPC Project Services, said:
“To see The King open this building, and to see it full of students, performers and members of the public, is a fitting recognition of an extraordinary team effort.
Our role was to create the conditions for that collaboration and to protect the client’s brief throughout. It has been a privilege to be part of it.”
