Athenaeum at Caltech

Athenaeum
Exterior view of the Athenaeum
Alternative names	Athenaeum at Caltech
General information
Address	Campus of the California Institute of Technology
Inaugurated	1930
Design and construction
Other designers	Gordon Kaufmann

The Athenaeum is a faculty and private social club on the California Institute of Technology campus in Pasadena, California.[1]

Building

The Athenaeum was designed by Gordon Kaufmann in the Mediterranean Revival style, with landscape design by Florence Yoch and Lucile Council, and opened in 1930. It includes a restaurant, bar, private hotel rooms,[1] and serves as Caltech's Faculty Club.[2] The Athenaeum has several named suites, including the Einstein Suite, where Albert Einstein stayed during his visits to Caltech.

Einstein stayed in the loggia during his annual winter visits to Caltech.[3]

Members

Membership numbers over 4000 and includes Caltech faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate seniors, alumni, trustees, and Associates of the California Institute of Technology, and staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Palomar Observatory, and the nearby Huntington Library and Art Gallery.[1]

Notable regulars at the Athenaeum Round Table have included:

• David Baltimore[4]
• Robert Christy[4]
• Lee Alvin DuBridge[5]
• Richard Feynman[4]
• William Alfred Fowler[6]
• Scott Fraser[4]
• Jesse L. Greenstein[7]
• Charles Christian Lauritsen[6]
• Maarten Schmidt[8]

See also

• List of American gentlemen's clubs

References

1. The Athenaeum website
2. Bates, Colleen Dunn; Gillis, Sandy; Ganon, Jill Alison (2006). Hometown Pasadena: The Insider's Guide. Prospect Park Publishing. pp. 46–47. ISBN 9780975393918. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
3. Beyette, Beverly Caltech: A World of Science Housed in Architectural Beauty. Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2000.
4. John M. Broder (March 7, 2004). "When These Friends Get Together, the Talk Is Rarely Small". The New York Times. The Caltech discussions could be compared to the celebrated Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, where leading literary wits of the 1920s traded quips and well-crafted insults. But the round table at the Athenaeum is a more sober and discursive affair. The discussions are notable for their spirit of inquiry, lack of intellectual pretension and absence of verbal one-upmanship.
5. Jesse L. Greenstein. "Lee Alvin Dubridge". National Academies Press Biographical Memoirs.
6. Donald D. Clayton (January 1996). "William Alfred Fowler (1911-1995)". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
7. Robert P. Kraft. "Jesse Leonard Greenstein". National Academies Press Biographical Memoirs.
8. Alan Zarembo, interview with Maarten Schmidt (June 16, 2008). "1942: A space odyssey - Celebrated astrophysicist traces passion to WWII sky". The Journal Gazette. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22.

34.136838°N 118.121679°W / 34.136838; -118.121679