In addition to naming the School of Design the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, the School’s central plaza will be named The Stuart Weitzman Plaza. It will undergo significant redesign and renovation by renowned landscape architect, Laurie Olin, Practice Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture at the School of Design.
Penn’s School of Design will be renamed for fashion icon and 1963 Wharton alumnus Stuart Weitzman, whose donation to the school will free it from its years-long struggle to sustain its high costs given limited research funding and gifts.
PennDesign will be renamed “the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design,” Penn President Amy Gutmann announced in an email to the Penn community Feb. 26. The sum of Weitzman’s contribution to the school will remain confidential, but “his incomparable support of the School of Design aligns his own lifetime body of work in design with his ongoing commitment to the University in a meaningful and impactful way,” Gutmann wrote.
The funds will go toward financial aid and academic programming, as well as toward PennDesign’s central plaza, which will undergo “significant redesign and renovation in the upcoming months,” Gutmann wrote. The plaza is located between Meyerson Hall and Fisher Fine Arts Library, next to College Green.