Stata Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ray and Maria Stata Center is a 430,000-ft² (40,000 m²) academic complex designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The building opened for initial occupancy on March 16, 2004. It sits on the site of MIT's former Building 20, which housed the historic Radiation Laboratory, in Cambridge, MA.
Major funding for this project was provided by Ray Stata (MIT class of 1957) and Maria Stata. Other major funders include Bill Gates and Alexander Dreyfoos (MIT class of 1954). Above the fourth floor, the building splits into two distinct structures: the Gates tower and the Dreyfoos tower.
Contained within the building are the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, as well as the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Academic celebrities such as Noam Chomsky, Rodney Brooks, and Ron Rivest have offices there. W3C founder Tim Berners-Lee and Free software movement founder Richard Stallman also have offices within.
Several MIT classes, such as 6.001, the introductory computer science course, are held inside. The Forbes Family Café is also located in the Stata Center, serving coffee and lunch to the public.
In contrast to the trend at MIT of referring to buildings by their numbers rather than their official names, the complex is usually referred to as "Stata," or "the Stata Center." The two towers are often called "G Tower" and "D tower".
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[edit] Building 20
The Stata Center necessitated the removal of the much-beloved Building 20 in 1998. 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!"[1][2]
[edit] Critical response
Boston Globe architecture columnist Robert Campbell wrote a glowing appraisal of the building on April 25th. According to Campbell, "the Stata is always going to look unfinished. It also looks as if it's about to collapse. Columns tilt at scary angles. Walls teeter, swerve, and collide in random curves and angles. Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal. Everything looks improvised, as if thrown up at the last moment. That's the point. The Stata's appearance is a metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that's supposed to occur inside it." Campbell stated that the cost overruns and delays in completion of the Stata Center are of no more importance than similar problems associated with the building of St. Paul's Cathedral. The 2005 Kaplan/Newsweek guide "How to Get into College,"[3]which lists twenty-five universities its editors consider notable in some respect, recognizes MIT as having the "hottest architecture," placing most of its emphasis on the Stata Center.
Though there are many who praise this building, and in fact from the perspective of Gehry's other work it is considered by some as one his best, there are certainly many who are less enamoured of the structure. The use of glass for walls on the inside means that those who work in the building have to give up a sense of privacy. There is also one lecture room where, because of the slight lean of the walls, some people have been known to experience vertigo. The building has also been criticized as insensitive to the needs of its inhabitants, poorly designed for day-to-day use, and at an official cost $283.5 million, extremely overpriced. Probably one of the more successful aspects of the building is the inner circulation system with niches for impromptu meetings and backboards along the wall.
[edit] Occupants
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
- Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems
- Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
[edit] References
- ^ Garfinkel, Simpson. "Building 20: The Procreative Eyesore". Technology Review 94 (November/December 1991): MIT11.
- ^ Quotes and Stories about Building 20
- ^ "How to Get into College,". Retrieved on November 23, 2005.
[edit] External links
- Official Stata Center Web page
- Wired Magazine's article on the Stata Center
- Boston Globe article criticizing the Stata Center
- MIT's Stata Center Opens, Raises Questions about Cost Control
- "Building MIT's Stata Center: An IT Perspective" LISA '05 Presenation MP3, Slides
- Virtual tour: MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (undated). CSAIL Lab Virtual Tours - Information Desk. Retrieved on December 26, 2006.
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- Satellite image from WikiMapia or Google Maps
- Street map from Multimap or GlobalGuide
- Aerial image from TerraServer
