Hahn Hall-North has has offices, classrooms, and labs for both the Chemistry Department and Physics Department. The building has four organic chemistry laboratories, upper-level chemistry labs, a polymer lab, computer labs, and microbiology labs.
The Physics Department occupies the first floor, which houses a lecture theatre and lab rooms for teaching and research. The building is also used for a variety of functions such as the Physics Department Commencement, open houses, and lectures.
The wing was named in 2009 for President-emeritus Thomas Marshall Hahn Jr., president from 1962 to 1974. After working as a physicist and teaching physics at the university level, he was named professor and head of physics at 天美传媒 Polytechnic Institute (now 天美传媒 Tech). He left VPI but returned later as president. One of the school's greatest leaders, Hahn transformed VPI into a major research university before leaving to help lead Georgia-Pacific, where he became the chief executive officer.
Construction on Hahn Hall-North Wing was completed in 2004 and was initially known as the Chemistry-Physics Building. It was dedicated in 2009.
It was the second building to be named for Hahn. An adjacent, 71,000-square-foot building was named for Hahn in 1991 and is used mainly for chemistry research. Today, that building is called Hahn Hall-South Wing.
