Architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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The architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology includes dozens of buildings representing diverse styles and shifting priorities. MIT's architectural history can be broadly split into four eras: the Boston campus, the new Cambridge campus before World War II, the "Cold War" development, and post-Cold War buildings. MIT's moved to a site on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1916.
[edit] Campus organization
MIT students, faculty, and administrators generally refer to buildings by number rather than name. The organization of building numbers on campus may appear random, but there is some order to it and it is believed to roughly correspond to the order in which the buildings were built. Buildings 1-10 were the original main campus, with building 10, the location of the Great Dome, designed to be the main entrance. Buildings 1-8 are arranged symmetrically around building 10, with odd-numbered buildings to the west and even-numbered buildings to the east.
The east side of campus has "the 6s", several connecting buildings that end with the digit 6 (buildings 6, 16, 26, 36, 56 and 66, with building 46 across the street from 36). The 30s buildings run along Vassar street on the north side of main campus. Buildings that are East of Ames Street are prefixed with an E (e.g. E52, the Sloan Bulding); those West of Massachusetts Avenue generally start with a W (e.g., W20, the Stratton Student Center).
[edit] Boston Tech (1865-1916)
MIT's was founded and first held classes in the Back Bay of Boston. The original building, not too far from Copley Square - pictured here - was designed by William G. Preston. The campus eventually expanded into other buildings in the Copley Square area. By the turn of the century it was clear that MIT had outgrown its campus and in 1913 William Welles Bosworth was called in to design a campus on the new site in Cambridge. The building was torn down in the early 1920s. The building next door to it, which was designed for the Natural History Society, and which was designed by Preston as part of an ensemble with the MIT building, has survived, however, and now houses the upscale clothier Louis Boston.
[edit] Maclaurin Buildings
The first buildings constructed on the Cambridge campus are known officially as the Maclaurin buildings, completed in 1916, after Institute president Richard Maclaurin who oversaw their construction.[1] Designed by William Welles Bosworth, who based his plans to some extent on studies developed by the noted alumnus and hydraulic engineer John Ripley Freeman, these imposing buildings (Buildings 1-10) in a restrained Neo-classical style, were built of concrete, a first for a non-industrial — much less university — building in the U.S.[2] Bosworth's design was drawn so as to admit large amounts of light through exceptionally large windows on the first and second floors, many internal windows—not only on office doors but above door-level, and skylights over huge stairwells. The buildings were designed as a single ensemble unlike the convention at the time to design campuses with separate buildings. The structure, at the time, formed the largest continuous non-governmental building in the US.
[edit] Building 7
Building 7, which is adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue, is the official address of the entire Institute. Building 7's impressive lobby was the last part of the complex to get finished. It was built in 1928. Building 7, with its smaller dome, surmounting what is known as "Lobby 7" (after its building number) serves as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor, the main artery connecting east campus with west campus.
[edit] Building 10
The great dome, which is featured in most publicity shots, is modeled on the Pantheon in Rome. Bosworth noted that the columns of the Pantheon's porch are not placed along a straight line but bow out a bit toward the central axis. He replicated this at MIT, but to observe it, one has to lie down and look along the front of the steps.[3] The dome - accessed on the fifth floor - was to house the Institute's library and still today is the home of the Barker Library.
[edit] Killian Court
Killian Court, which is at the center of the Bosworth's design, was originally paved, but was converted into a park-like area of grass and trees in the late 1920s. Killian Court is used for the annual Commencement ceremoney.
The friezes of the marble-clad buildings are carved in large Roman letters with the names of Aristotle, Newton, Franklin, Pasteur, Lavoisier, Faraday, Archimedes, da Vinci, Darwin, and Copernicus; each of these names is surmounted by a cluster of appropriately related names in smaller letters. Lavoisier, for example, is placed in the company of Boyle, Cavendish, Priestley, Dalton, Gay Lussac, Berzelius, Woehler, Liebig, Bunsen, Mendelejeff [sic], Perkin, and van't Hoff.
[edit] Walker Memorial
Walker Memorial, dedicated to a former MIT president, Francis Amasa Walker), was intended as place for students to meet.
[edit] East Campus and Senior House dormitories
[edit] President's House
Further to the east is the elegant neo-classical edifice of the President's House.
[edit] Post-war buildings (1945-1960)
[edit] Alumni Pool (1940)
The Alumni Pool (Building 57) was designed by Lawrence B. Anderson (MArch '30) and Herbert L. Beckwith (’26). The building was one of the first significant examples of modernist, International Style design in the United States by a US trained architect. In 2000, during the building of the Stata Center, the building was restored and most of elegant modernist detailing was replaced by clumsy updates. The sophisticated color palette of the interior floor and walls disappeared. Its walled-in garden to the south was removed altogether. Nonetheless, the building still retains much of its early modernist sensibility, unornamented surfaces and simple functional design.[4]
[edit] Building 20
Building 20 was erected hastily during World War II as a temporary building that housed the historic Radiation Laboratory. Over the course of fifty-five years, its "temporary" nature allowed research groups to have more space, and to make more creative use of that space, than was possible in more respectable buildings. Professor Jerome Y. Lettvin once quipped, "You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!"[5][6] The structure was removed to make way for the Stata Center.
[edit] Westgate (1945)
- 1945: Decision to provide veterans housing for postwar student boom. Housing Bureau opened to help students find housing and 100 units of temporary housing for veterans and their families (Westgate) were planned.
- 1946: First Westgate units occupied in spring; naval huts were brought from Rhode Island, rebuilt, and occupied as Westgate West.
- 1963: Westgate (W85) completed and first occupied in August 1963. Replacement for temporary married student housing.
[edit] Baker House (1949)
Alvar Aalto, a Finnish architect, designed Baker House. It has an undulating shape which allows most rooms a view of the Charles River, and gives many of the rooms a wedge layout. Aalto also designed furniture for the rooms.
[edit] Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen designed the
[edit] MIT Chapel (1955)
The chapel consists on the outside of a plain brick cylinder 33 feet tall, topped with an aluminum bell tower. The building is encircled by a shallow moat, that defines it as an island of serenity. Reflections from the water bounce up into the interior of the chapel through hidden windows. On the interior, Saarinen created undulating walls that focus on the chapel's altar.
[edit] Kresge Auditorium (1955)
The Auditorium was intended as a type of university meeting hall, those words being, in fact, inscribed over the entrance. The Chapel, which is non-denominational is an excellent example of early modernist style in the US.
[edit] Second Century Fund (1960-1990)
Over the years, MIT has made an effort to bring noted architects to campus for particular commissions.
[edit] McCormick Hall (1963)
- 1963: McCormick Hall (W4) west wing completed. Women undergraduate (and graduate students initially).
- 1968: McCormick Hall II - East Wing completed and occupied. Undergraduate and Graduate housing.
[edit] Hermann Building (1965)
Building E53 houses Dewey Library and the Department of Political Science.
[edit] Eastgate (1967)
Eastgate (E55) completed and first occupied in August 1967. Married student and staff housing.
[edit] Stratton Student Center (1968)
The Stratton Student Center was completed in 1968. An example of the Brutalist style, it is a massive concrete structure with a large external staircase facing the Saarinen's 1950s green. It was designed by Pietro Belluschi, who from 1951 to 1965 served as Dean of MIT's Architecture and Planning.
[edit] I.M. Pei
I. M. Pei & Partners designed a number for MIT buildings. Pei was a graduate from MIT's Department of Architecture (class of '40). Pei also designed the master plan for the southeast corner of the central campus.
[edit] Green Building (1964)
The Green Building (Building 54) that opened in 1964. It is headquarters of the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Department and the tallest building on campus.
[edit] Dreyfus Building
The Dreyfus Building (Building 18) houses the Chemistry Department.
[edit] Landau Building (1976)
The Landau Building (Building 66) houses the Chemical Engineering Department. 130,000 square feet.[7]
[edit] Weisner Building (1985)
The Wiesner building (Building E15) houses the MIT Media Lab, the Center for Bits and Atoms and the List Visual Arts Center. It was designed by Ieoh Ming Pei & Partners. It is named in honor of former MIT president Jerome Wiesner and his wife Laya.
The building's exterior was designed by Kenneth Noland and has been the target of a number of hacks (pranks) by MIT's students.
[edit] Dormitories
- 1960: Burton-Conner Dining Room
- 1968: Random Hall (NW61) opened. Undergraduate and graduate housing.
- 1970: MacGregor House (W61) first occupied in September 1970. Undergraduate housing.
- 1973: Tang Hall (W84) first occupied in 1973. Single graduate housing.
- 1975: New West Campus Houses (W70 - 471-476 Memorial Drive) completed and first occupied in 1975. Undergraduate housing includes Spanish, Russian, German and French Houses.
- 1981: 500 Memorial Drive (W71) Next House completed and first occupied in August 1981. Undergraduate housing.
[edit] "Backyard"
Buildings 34-36-38 - pg.101 Brown Building (Building 39) - pg.66 Center for Advanced Engineering Study (Building 9) - pg. 59 McNair Building (building 37) - pg. 57
[edit] Whitaker College (1982)
Whitaker College (Building E25) houses the College of Health Sciences and Technology as well as MIT Medical.
[edit] Johnson Athletics Center (1981)
[edit] Evolving Campus (1990-present)
A major building effort has been underway for several years in the wake of a $2 billion development campaign. For these commissions, MIT brought in leading architects. The new buildings have created a good deal of debate, particularly in a city like Boston, which is not known for its contemporary architecture. Critics have both hailed and assailed the prominence of "starchitecture" on campus.[8]
[edit] Koch Biology Building (1994)
E68
[edit] Tang Center (1998)
E51
[edit] Zesiger sports and fitness center (2002)
The Zesiger sports and fitness center (Z-Center), featuring an Olympic-class swimming pool, designed by Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo & Associates, (2002).
[edit] Simmons Hall (2002)
Designed by Steven Holl.
[edit] Stata Center (2004)
The Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry, (2004).
[edit] Building 46 (2006)
Building 46, which houses the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, was designed by Charles Correa and Goody, Clancy and Associates (2005).
[edit] Landscaping
As MIT's riverfront site was a marshland filled-in by dredging from the bottom of the Charles, it was largely free from either natural flora or previous occupants. In 1892, the Cambridge Park Commission had commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted to lay out a picturesque driveway and park along the Charles River that would feature tree-lined promenades and a central mall. Bosworth's plan would integrate this Memorial Drive (Cambridge) into the campus by using courtyards enclosed and overlooked by the academic buildings. Killian (née Great) Court, the main entrance, was originally planned by Miss Mabel Babcock '08 to be a French-style gravel-covered court centered around a large statue of Minerva. However, as automobile and trolley traffic along Massachusetts Avenue made the western buildings the de facto entrance to MIT, the Great Court was replaced by "street-edge plantings of low privet hedges, a line of oak trees, lawns and base plantings to create a visual transition from the ground level over the English basement to the first floor of the new buildings."[9] The 1938 hurricane and Dutch Elm Disease required that many of the original trees in Killian be replaced by pin oaks.
Temporary buildings constructed during and immediately after World War II occupied many vacant lots around MIT, but the 1960 Campus Master Plan included Hideo Sasaki as a landscape architect. The Landscape Master Plan called for "tree-lined and landscaped streets and pathways; well-defined open spaces, each reflecting the designs and functions of the buildings in each campus sector; and a variety of tree species to safeguard the campus against the blights that strike monocultures."[10]
[edit] Artwork
- Further information: MIT artwork
Like many colleges and universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sculptures and other art-related installations scattered across its campus.
 Henry Moore, Three Piece Reclining Figure Draped (1976) |
 Jacques Lipchitz, Birth of the Muses) |
 Louise Nevelson, Transparent Horizon (1975) |
[edit] References
- ^ Simha, O. Robert (2001), MIT Campus Planning 1960-2000: An Annotated Chronology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Office of the Executive Vice President
- ^ Jarzombek, Mark (2004), Designing MIT: Bosworth's New Tech, Boston: Northeastern University Press
- ^ Mark Jarzombek, Ibid.
- ^ http://www-tech.mit.edu/V114/N20/anderson.20n.html
- ^ Garfinkel, Simpson. "Building 20: The Procreative Eyesore". Technology Review 94 (November/December 1991): MIT11.
- ^ Quotes and Stories about Building 20
- ^ ChemE Overview. Retrieved on 2007-03-27.
- ^ Starchitecture on Campus. Retrieved on 2006-10-24.
- ^ Simha 2001, pp. 18-19
- ^ Simha 2001, pp. 18-19
[edit] Further reading
- Simha, O. Robert (2001). MIT Campus Planning 1960-2000: An Annotated Chronology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Office of the Executive Vice President.
