In late 2025, Oxford’s Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics moved into the spectacular surroundings of the new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. This new home for Oxford Linguistics is transforming the opportunities for learning and research for Oxford’s growing community of linguists.
Oxford has been a home for leading linguistic scholarship for over 800 years. But this is the first time that so many of Oxford’s linguists have been housed under one roof.
The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities is the most ambitious building project in the history of Oxford University. It is a 25,000 square metre building that brings together 7 humanities faculties together with state of the art cultural and performance spaces, forming the centrepiece of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ), a new university hub in the Jericho neighbourhood, on the site of the former Radcliffe Infirmary. The building was made possible by a £185m donation by American entrepreneur and philanthropist Stephen A Schwarzman.
The Schwarzman Centre is designed to be a space where people come together, cutting across disciplinary boundaries, and inviting the public into traditionally closed university spaces. After technology and the pandemic made it easier for people to be pulled apart, the Schwarzman Centre creates spaces that encourage people to come together for planned and spontaneous conversations.
A view from the top floor balcony adjacent to Oxford Linguistics
The Linguistics space in the Schwarzman Centre comprises a mix of individual and shared workspaces overlooking the historic Radcliffe Observatory and the Mathematical Institute. A series of classrooms and seminar rooms face the building’s central central atrium. In the middle of the Linguistics space are two large new lab suites – the Phonetics Laboratory and the Psycholinguistics Laboratory – that reflect the faculty’s substantial resources for experimental research.
Linguistics students and staff can use flexible workspaces throughout the building for different functions. In addition to dedicated student workspaces within the main Linguistics suite, the open workspaces in the building’s Great Hall and on the balconies above it are popular spots for individual or group study or conversations. The Bodleian Humanities Library that spans floors 0-2 of the building has a wide range of workspaces to suit all tastes.
The Schwarzman Centre includes much more than academic spaces. The ground floor and below ground levels include a 500-seat concert hall, a theatre, a recital hall, a black box, a cinema and an exhibit space, as well as two cafés and the historic Bate Collection of Musical Instruments. A hidden gem next to Linguistics is a roof terrace with views overlooking the Oxford skyline and surrounding countryside.
King Charles III visits the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, July 10, 2026
The Schwarzman Centre is built around sustainability. It is the largest Passivhaus university building in Europe, and it has the world’s first Passivhaus concert hall. Passivhaus is a rigorous design standard that creates ultra-low-energy structures. Despite attracting thousands of visitors per day, it has no regular car parking, and hundreds of spaces for bike parking.
The move into the Schwarzman Centre has already had a clear impact on the intellectual life of Oxford Linguistics. More people want to spend time working in the building. More students and staff interact on a daily basis. Participation in research events is sharply higher now that the spaces are more accessible and congenial. More academic visitors are spending time in Oxford. And more interaction across disciplines is taking place. Linguists are also taking advantage of the many other academic and cultural events taking place in the Schwarzman Centre.
