CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering
In September 2014, CoorsTek and the Coors family announced an unprecedented $27 million investment in Colorado School of Mines, funding not only the CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering but also high-tech equipment and a graduate research fellowship program. The new building opened in September 2017 and welcomed its first students in January 2018.
The building is a significant milestone in a multigenerational academic, research and career opportunity partnership between Mines, the Coors family and CoorsTek, the world’s leading engineered ceramics manufacturer, highlighted by the establishment of the CoorsTek Research Fellows Program and a range of high-tech equipment purchases, including one of the most advanced electron microscopes in the United States. CoorsTek’s and the Coors family’s funding, in conjunction with a $14.6 million grant from the state of Colorado, enabled the construction of the 95,000-square-foot CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering, a world-class facility that supports a broad range of academic and research activities on the Mines campus as well as serves as a focal point for the CoorsTek-Mines research partnership.
A measurably better world will come from the amazing solutions that advances in engineered ceramics and engineered materials make possible. In order for that to happen, we need more scientists and engineers trained in state-of-the-art facilities by expert faculty, and more opportunities to collaborate with the brightest researchers.
For CoorsTek, our investment in Mines is not only an investment in the future of our company and a great university – it’s an investment in solving global challenges in energy, transportation, information technology, the environment and the quality of human life itself.
This partnership between CoorsTek and the Coors family, the state of Colorado and Colorado School of Mines is not about a building. It’s about something much more. It’s about connecting students, researchers, faculty and industry to impact the world in ways that we can’t even predict today.
PUBLIC ART: Luminous Waveforms
The art installation–a hanging sculpture comprised of 240 specially designed aluminum oxide ceramic tiles manufactured by CoorsTek–was unveiled In July 2018 by artists David Cole and Michael Brown, CoorsTek Co-CEOs Michael Coors and Timothy Coors and Chief Technology Officer Randel Mercer.
The two-year project began as a call for artists where interested parties were given a description of the building, plus the stipulation that the art piece would include ceramic materials manufactured by CoorsTek. Four finalists were chosen to visit the CoorsTek Center, meet with the project committee and tour two CoorsTek manufacturing facilities to gain a greater understanding of the medium they were required to use.
The material was chosen because its translucency allowed LEDs to illuminate each tile from behind. The mechanical movement of the tiles and the patterns displayed by the LEDs are inspired by the laws of physics and activated by the movement of the students below the artwork. This piece is entirely original and almost everything was fabricated from scratch.
“Michael and I are both fascinated by industry and science, and felt particularly engaged by this opportunity,” said Cole. “It was on a tour of a CoorsTek facility that we found a beautiful cylinder made of very pure alumina. When we shone a light through the material, the whole object glowed, and the seed of our idea was formed.”
CoorsTek
1523 Illinois Street
Golden, CO 80401
Street Address
1523 Illinois St
Golden, CO 80401