The Schuster Laboratory (also known as the Schuster Building) houses the School of Physics and Astronomy

School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester

The School of Physics and Astronomy, formed by the merger of the Departments of Physics at the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST in 2004 when the universities merged to form the University of Manchester, is one of the largest and most active physics departments in the United Kingdom and...

 at the University of Manchester

University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...

. It is located on Brunswick Street, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, within the Engineering and Physical Sciences faculty of the University. The building was designed by Fairhurst, Harry S. & Sons, of the Fairhurst Design Group, and was completed in 1967. The roof of the largest Lecture Theatre in the building has an abstract sculpture by Michael Piper on it. The building was refurbished in 2007.

Architecture

The Schuster Laboratory was built during a time of expansion for the University, with the construction of a new Science Quadrangle. The Schuster Building was one of the later buildings constructed on this Quadrangle. The Electrical Engineering Laboratory, on the northwest side, was completed by 1954 and named the Williamson Building. This was followed by the Simon Engineering Laboratories on the southwest of the quadrangle, finished in mid-1962, and the Chemistry building on the southeast which was completed by October 1964. The Schuster Laboratories had been approved, and planning was nearly completed, by the end of August 1962.

Facilities

The building houses four large lecture rooms around the foyer on the ground floor. named after people who taught or carried out research in the department: Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...

, Bragg

William Lawrence Bragg

Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH OBE MC FRS was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer of the Bragg law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. He was knighted...

, Blackett

Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett OM CH FRS was an English experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism. He also made a major contribution in World War II advising on military strategy and developing Operational Research...

 and Moseley

Henry Moseley

Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley was an English physicist. Moseley's outstanding contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra...

. The rooms are centrally allocated by the University, rather than being solely used by the School. Rutherford is the largest of the lecture theatres, holding 258, while Bragg holds 150, Blackett holds 145 and Moseley holds 148. There is also a meeting room on the roof of one of the wings, called the Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...

 Common Room. The building also houses workshop facilities and teaching laboratories, and a small cafe on the ground floor, named "The ErrΦr Bar".

Occupation

The building was purpose-built for the School of Physics and Astronomy. It currently contains the following groups:

• Biological Physics Group
• Condensed Matter Physics Group (2nd floor)
• Nonlinear Dynamics and Liquid Crystal Physics Group
• Particle Physics Group (5th and 6th floor)
• Nuclear Physics Group (4th floor)
• Theoretical Physics Group (7th floor)

The building used to house part of the Astronomy and Astrophysics group

Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, is among the largest astrophysics groups in the UK. It includes the world leading facilities of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, the Development Office of the Square Kilometre Array, and the...

, as well as the Photon Physics Group, but these were relocated to the Alan Turing Building

Alan Turing Building

The Alan Turing Building, named after the mathematician and founder of computer science Alan Turing, is a building at the University of Manchester, in Manchester, England. It houses the School of Mathematics, the Photon Science Institute and the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics...

in September 2007.