The University of Oxford set out to do something it had never done before: a £185m centre uniting seven humanities faculties, leading research institutes like the Institute for Ethics in AI, a new Bodleian Library and a public-facing cultural programme.
The challenge was to create a brand that could articulate a fundamental shift: from the humanities as an academic silo to the humanities as a living, experience-led cultural presence.
Everyone said it differently, but the belief was the same: the Centre wasn’t about presenting finished culture. It was about creating the conditions for it to emerge - culture that moves, grows and changes in real time shaped by the people who take part.
That became the heart of the brand: Culture in Creation, a dynamic brand defined through living, evolving with its audiences, empowering them to define what it becomes and building momentum as it grows.
Now open, the Schwarzman Centre is redefining what Oxford stands for - giving faculties a shared voice, inviting the public to take part on their own terms and setting a new model for how culture is made.
