Ken Griffin's $3 Billion Gift to Carnegie Mellon Puts the Arts and Design at the Center of a New Miami Venture

Ken Griffin, a collector whose name readers of this page will know, has pledged $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University. No college or university has ever received a larger single gift. The money is going to something the university is building in Miami. For this desk, the most important part is the university's own promise: humanities, arts and design will not be side subjects but a central part of the plan. That is unusual for a commitment of this size, and our readers will want to watch how it develops. A gift on this scale changes the cultural map of a city, and this one is pointed at Miami, a city whose galleries, design districts and auction calendar we already follow closely. When a collector's money goes into teaching and studying how things are made, the future makers, curators and buyers that Miami's market depends on come from that work. The details of what Carnegie Mellon will build are still to come, and we will report them as they are made public.

With reporting from ARTnews.