Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Encyclopedia
The campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
is located on a 168 acres (68 ha) tract in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, United States
. The campus spans approximately one mile (1.6 km) of the north side of the Charles River
basin directly opposite the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The campus includes dozens of buildings representing diverse architectural styles and shifting campus priorities over MIT's history
. 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. Each era was marked by distinct builds representing neoclassical, modernist
, brutalist, and deconstructivist
styles which alternatively represent a commitment to utilitarian minimalism and embellished exuberance.
Buildings 1–10 (excepting 9) were the original main campus, with Building 10, the location of the Great Dome, designed to be the ceremonial main entrance. The actual street entrance leads from 77 Massachusetts Avenue into the lobby of Building 7, at the western end of the "Infinite Corridor
", which forms the east-west axis of the main group of buildings. Buildings 1–8 are arranged symmetrically around Building 10, with odd-numbered buildings to the west and even-numbered buildings to the east. In general, higher numbers are assigned to buildings as distance from the center of campus increases.
The east side of main 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" series 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 Building); those West of Massachusetts Avenue generally start with a W (e.g., W20, the Stratton Student Center).
Buildings North of the railroad tracks paralleling Vassar Street are prefixed with N, while those northerly structures that are also West of Massachusetts Avenue are designated with NW. A single building at the far West end of campus is designated "WW15", possibly to avoid assigning a 3-digit building number. The prefix NE appears to be used for buildings north of Main Street, even for structures actually located due north of other buildings designated with N.
Buildings that are far from the main campus are prefixed OC, for off campus. There are no buildings prefixed with S, since the campus is bordered at its southern edge by the Charles River
.
To identify a particular room within a building, the room number is simply appended to the building number, using a "-" (e.g. Room 26–100, a large first-floor auditorium in Building 26). The floor number is indicated in the usual way, by the leading digit(s) of the room number, with a leading digit 0 indicating a basement location.
The practice of identifying buildings by number is a long-standing tradition at MIT. Although sometimes ridiculed as evidence of an "engineering mindset", and referred to as "a system that disorients outsiders", this system is somewhat logical, and allows members of the MIT community to quickly locate a classroom they may never have seen before. Contrast this system with the building identification at nearby Harvard University
, where knowing the location of "Maxwell-Dworkin" will not help in locating "Claverson" or "Larsen" — no matter how many years of experience one may have, one either knows these locations or has no idea where they may be. Under the MIT numbering scheme, community members will know approximately where Building NW95 must be, even if they have never been near there. Using the MIT building number system, students can even extrapolate a building number for a fanciful future annexation of Cambridge City Hall
.
Most MIT buildings do have names, which can be found on many maps, or carved near the entrance, molded into a bronze plaque, or lettered onto a glass window. Many buildings are popularly known by name (e.g. "Kresge Auditorium"), even as individual rooms are identified by number (e.g. W16-100). Some locations have dual designations in common use (e.g. "Huntington Hall", better known as "10–250", which is an auditorium located on the second floor, under the Great Dome in Building 10). Building names can also be obtained from either the interactive online or downloadable MIT map.
There are numerous minor refinements, tweaks, and exceptions in the room numbering and naming, providing plenty of material for a trivia contest, or for sussing out would-be imposters. The student-written MIT guide, How To Get Around MIT (HowToGAMIT) devotes almost 4 pages of small print to details of MIT geography.
Boston's Back Bay neighborhood was recovered from filled-in marshland along the Charles River
over several decades. The City of Boston reserved several lots for churches, museums, and other community buildings. A lot bounded on the north and south by Newbury and Boylston streets, and to the east and west by Berkeley and Clarendon streets, was awarded to the newly-founded Boston Natural History Society and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
William G. Preston
designed three buildings to occupy the site, although the original plan for an "MIT Museum" was never built. The Natural History Society building, completed in 1862, occupied the easternmost third, facing Berkeley street. The MIT building, later called the Rogers Building, occupied the center, and faced Boylston street. It was not opened until 1865 owing to delays because of the Civil War
. The five-story Rogers building featured a "grand tetra-style Corinthian portico" modeled on the Duke of Wellington
's remodeled Apsley House
.
MIT quickly outgrew this space as new schools, departments, and laboratories were founded. In 1886, the five-story (original) Walker Memorial building housing the Physics and Chemistry departments was built in the space to the west of the Rogers building. The original Walker Memorial building, designed by Carl Fehmer
, consisted of a more subdued, industrial arcade motif compared to the surrounding fashionable buildings. As Jarzombek suggests, "the choice of this style, even for such a prominent urban space, was clearly MIT's and a testament to its desire to promote the ideals of scientific professionalism." More annexes, given utilitarian names "Engineering Buildings A, B, and C" were designed in the same industrial manner, and built between 1889 and 1900 on a site south of the Trinity Church
.
After MIT's move to Cambridge in 1916, the original Rogers and Walker buildings were eventually torn down in 1939 to make way for the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company building. Their sibling structure, the Natural History Society building, has survived to the present day by hosting a succession of retail stores after its original tenant moved to the current location of the Museum of Science Boston. The city block that originally contained the Engineering annexes is now the site where the John Hancock Tower
stands.
The names of Rogers and Walker were both re-applied to new MIT buildings (Building 7 and Building 50, respectively) erected across the Charles River in Cambridge, in the early 1900s.
and Pittsburgh
, state universities founded under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
, and private universities like Harvard
, Princeton
, Columbia
, and Stanford
were closing the gap on MIT's early lead on laboratory-based education, with large and modern laboratories placed amongst large, park-like campuses. MIT repeatedly resisted overtures from Harvard President Charles William Eliot
to merge the schools, and after President Richard C. Maclaurin was elected in 1909, he began to search for sites to relocate the Institute.
A 50 acres (202,343 m²) site in Cambridge, recovered from the Charles River
and set amongst dirty factories and tenement housing, was ultimately selected for the construction of a new campus. Thomas Coleman du Pont, a graduate of MIT's Chemistry department donated $500,000 to be used towards the purchase of the land under a promise from President Maclaurin that the first building constructed would be for Chemistry. The site abutted Massachusetts Avenue (which crossed the river on the Harvard Bridge
) along which were many newly built neo-classical structures like Langdell Hall
, Christian Science Center Church, and Symphony Hall
on the Boston side, with which MIT's new Cambridge campus would have to compete. In Maclaurin's words, "We have a glorious site and glorious opportunities, but our task of design is not made more easy by the great expectations of Boston."
Early proposals for the campus came from Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge
, Stephen Child
, Constant-Désiré Despradelle, and John Ripley Freeman
. Shepley's and Child's plans incorporated Georgian Revival styled, L-shaped, brick buildings set on symmetric grass avenues or quads, much like the recently-completed Harvard Medical School
, but were inappropriately sized for the industrial research that would occur within. Despradelle's Beaux-Arts proposal would have partitioned the campus into separate zones for academic, research, and residential activities, but its World's-Fair-like layout provided insufficient space for laboratories. His later iterations solved the laboratory space problems, but provided uncomfortable proximity and insufficient space for the residences as well as being enormously expensive.
After Despradelle's sudden death in 1912, Freeman's "Study No. 7" was thrust to the fore. His proposal, based on Taylorism, was "one-fifth architecture and four-fifths a problem of industrial engineering." He proposed connecting all departmental buildings to prevent the emergence of academic fiefdoms, to provide protection from bad weather. and to enable efficiencies of scale by building a massive, one million square-foot building incorporating the administrative, teaching, and research functions. The proposed five-story building resembled a large "E" with the base aligned to the river, with "cloistered" courtyards and a pedimented Doric exterior. Freeman also rejected using masonry walls, and proposed using reinforced concrete, a material that was then thought to be both expensive and unconventional. President Maclaurin and MIT's Executive Committee sought to hire an established architect, rather than an ambitious engineer, to design the campus and briefly retained Cass Gilbert
before conflicts with a determined Freeman drove him off.
, Maclaurin chose Rockefeller's personal architect, MIT graduate William Welles Bosworth, to lead the next round of designs. In no small part, he was chosen because of his willingness to work for clients with strong personal convictions. Bosworth was trained in the Beaux-Arts style and was influenced by the City Beautiful movement
which was at its height at the time.
Bosworth's proposal retained many elements of the previous proposals: a large, multi-armed building with room for future expansion and a large central court, but also successfully integrated the dormitories into the rest of the complex. The campus would be oriented around two major east-west cross axes connecting the western academic half of campus with the residential eastern half of campus. Each half of campus would in turn be oriented around separate north-south axes, the western oriented its open green space towards the river and Boston while the eastern oriented its track and tennis courts northward into Cambridge. 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. However, later revisions began to incorporate more elements originally found in Freeman's designs such as double-loaded corridors and "open-grid, concrete structure with crossbeams supported by pairs of columns in the middle."
The Maclaurin Buildings comprise Buildings 3, 4, and 10, and form a large U-shaped structure enclosing the section of Killian Court farthest from the Charles River. This is the outdoors area where formal Commencement (graduation) ceremonies occur every May, and is the classic view of MIT featured in many publicity photos. The buildings were named in honor of MIT president Richard C. Maclaurin, who was instrumental in organizing MIT's move from Boston to "The New Technology" campus in Cambridge. The facade of Building 10 is dominated by a colonnade of 10 monumental columns of the classic Ionic order. The Brass Rat, MIT's class ring, features the Building 10 facade on the shank of each ring, including a portrayal of the Great Dome.
The Great Dome, which sits atop Building 10, is modeled on McKim, Mead, and White
's Low Memorial Library
at Columbia University
, which is in turn an imitation of the Pantheon
in Rome. The Dome was originally planned to be a cavernous assembly hall, but budget limitations threatened to prevent construction of the Dome altogether. A smaller library (now the Barker Engineering Library) and lecture hall (10–250) instead filled the space. Architectural historian Mark Jarzombek later described the library space as a "capacious oculus [admitting] light into its center, and its perimeter surrounded by a row of Corinthian columns. Four curved topped aedicules [add] a counter-punctual element. More baroque in flavor that what one normally might have expected from Bosworth, the building seems in fact to be an inside-out quotation from Christopher Wren
's St. Paul's Cathedral."
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. This is a classical optical illusion
also used in the Parthenon
of Athens
to make the line of columns appear straight. Bosworth replicated this technique at MIT; to observe it, one has to lie down and sight along the front of the steps.
Students of the Institute often refer to the center of the Great Dome as "The Center of the Universe".
Bosworth's plan was notable for rejecting the prevailing conventions of separated buildings and retreat from the urban area, as was found in other new American campuses. The Great Court, renamed Killian Court in 1974 after President James Rhyne Killian
, faces the river and the Boston skyline and "emphasizes the institution's openness to the urban environment and fulfills Maclaurin's ambition." Killian Court was originally hard-paved, but was converted into a park-like area of grass and trees in the late 1920s. Bosworth had planned to install a three-story-high statue of Minerva
at the center of the court, but funds for this embellishment were never appropriated. Today, Killian Court is the site of the annual Commencement ceremony, and is otherwise used for studying, relaxing, and playing Frisbee
games in good weather.
The friezes of the marble-clad buildings surrounding Killian Court are carved in large Roman letters with the names of Aristotle
, Newton
, Franklin
, Pastevr
, Lavoisier
, Faraday
, Archimedes
, da Vinci
, Darwin
, and Copernicvs; 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 Lvssac
, Berzelivs
, Woehler, Liebig
, Bvnsen
, Mendelejeff
[sic], Perkin, and van't Hoff
. The names are carved in the classic Roman square capitals
using the Latin alphabet
, with V instead of U, and I should have been used instead of J, since the latter letter of each pair did not exist in ancient times. Inexplicably, the letter J is used anyway, along with W, in spite of the blatant anachronisms.
, a staunch advocate for student life. The Memorial was to have been designed in a "relaxed classical style with a generous convex portico overlooking the Charles River." However, cost overruns forced the scale of many planned buildings to be altered. A gymnasium, which had previously been separate from the Memorial, was integrated into a combined structure. Today, the gymnasium is used for dance and martial arts classes, as well as for the administration of midterm and final exams for large classes. The ground floor dining area is no longer used as a cafeteria, but remains open for campus functions. Walker Memorial also contains the administrative offices for many MIT student organizations.
, the fourteenth president of MIT (1980–1990). This residence for the MIT president is located adjacent to Senior House, and cradles inside the elbow of the L-shaped dormitory. The President's House was the last part of the original Bosworth campus to be constructed, and consists of a three-story structure with a simple, rectangular floor plan that incorporates a ballroom on the top floor.
, is the second building of that name, the original having been demolished on its Back Bay site some years after MIT moved to Cambridge. Located at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, it is the official address of the entire Institute and serves as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor
, the main artery connecting east campus with west campus. The Rogers Building was not a part of the original campus, but was built as a part of MIT's extension of the original Bosworth plan along Massachusetts Avenue. The spacious lobby (called Lobby 7 after its building number) is an impressive vestibule
topped by a small dome that rejects the neoclassical tradition of reducing scale between the interior and exterior, with the result that the "inner space remains at the less intimate urban scale." The glass oculus
at the top was blacked out during World War II
but was restored during a renovation in 2000. The School of Architecture and Planning
is housed around the dome and the lobby court.
(MArch 1930) and Herbert L. Beckwith (BArch 1926, MArch 1927). 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 adjoining Stata Center
, the building was restored and most of the 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 and replaced by a more open landscaping. Nonetheless, the building still retains much of its early modernist sensibility, unornamented surfaces and simple functional design.
once quipped, "You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!" Building 20 was always regarded as "temporary", and thus never received a formal name over its half-century of existence. The structure was removed in 1996–98 to make way for the Stata Center
. Some of its previous occupants moved into the Stata Center upon its completion, while other "Building 20 refugees" moved to Building N51/N52 or dispersed to other locations on campus.
. The demand for housing was unprecedented both in quantity as well as in qualitiy; students often were married and many had children to care for. A temporary community persisted for over a decade before the decision was made to create more-permanent housing for married students.
In its current incarnation, completed in 1963, Westgate consists of several low-rise buildings associated with a high-rise tower.
Rockwell Cage was named for Dr. John Rockwell
, MIT class of 1896. He was a top athlete while a student, and returned in 1927 as the President of the Advisory Council for Athletics. Rockwell is currently the official venue for MIT basketball and volleyball, although the space, which spans three and a half basketball courts, is also used for collegiate and non-collegiate tournaments in other sports (such as gymnastics), as well as recreational badminton. In the fall of 2006 and 2007, the Rockwell Cage was the venue for the Northeast regional matches in the NCAA Division III
Women's Volleyball Championships
.
The Rockwell Cage is part of the larger, interconnected Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) Complex, which is often referred to collectively as the "Z-Center". Rockwell is in the center of the complex, and is connected to the DuPont Athletic Center, Zesiger Center
, and the Johnson Athletic Center.
, 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-shaped layout. Baker House has six floors, with rooms for 1–4 people, and features a largely brick interior with wooden furniture and trim. The basement level contains Baker Dining, one of the four residential dining halls on campus, and the only one which is open seven nights a week.
Aalto also designed the furniture, much of which was intended to fit in specific rooms in order to maximize the limited space. Several of these furniture pieces were given various animal names. Each resident has a large, wheeled wardrobe (no closets in the brick rooms) called an "elephant" and thigh-high rolling case of drawers called an "armadillo," which fits neatly under the desks. Occupants of the largest singles, called "couches" because they are large enough to accommodate such furniture, also have free-standing sets of shelving called "giraffes." The giraffe is so-named because piece consists of pole, which is pressed into the floor and ceiling and thus is position-adjustable, adorned with several shelves that protrude in one direction and only rise to waist height, creating a giraffe-like shape. Many residents choose to flip their giraffes upside-down in order to have more floor space.
, a Finnish architect, designed the non-denominational MIT Chapel. The chapel exterior consists of a plain brick cylinder 33 feet (10.1 m) 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. The sculptor Harry Bertoia
designed the suspended metallic screen behind the altar.
The buildings are named for David Flett DuPont, who contributed a million dollars toward the improvement of athletic facilities, whose bequest also facilitated the building of twelve outdoor tennis courts. DuPont, as the two buildings are collectively known, was the third athletic building constructed on campus, and the second component of what is now the DAPER Complex (often collectively known as the Z-Center). The Athletic Center (W32) is connected to and immediately west of the Gymnasium (W31), and adjacent on the other side to the Rockwell Cage and the Zesiger Center
. W32 houses MIT's fencing
, pistol
, and rifle
teams, while W31 is home to gymnastics
, volleyball
, and wrestling
(although they may compete in the Rockwell Cage). The T-club Lounge is located at the DuPont Athletic Center and is the main venue for DAPER exercise classes.
Building W31 is also home to MIT's Center for Real Estate, founded in 1983, and located on the 3rd floor.
Over the years, MIT has made an effort to bring noted architects to campus for particular commissions.
Professor Herbert L. Beckwith was named architect of the project and he proposed a pair of towers on a riverside plot between Memorial Drive and the Kresge Court. Construction required the relocation of a Catholic nursing order, busy parking lot, and existing student housing. Building was broken into two phases: the West Wing was completed in 1963 and the East Wing was completed in 1968. The towers are connected by public spaces like a dining hall, dance studio, and music room at the ground floor. The building has attracted some criticism for its inefficient use of space, but it was renovated in the late 1990s.
. The building has been criticized by its inhabitants for its lack of natural light and "fortress architecture."
Professor Eduardo F. Catalano replaced Saarinen in 1961 and proposed a structure that would house meeting and practice rooms as well as commercial areas like a post office, tailor, barbershop, and bowling alley. The proposed building was a monumentally imposing structure representing a high form of brutalism and included large glass windows, balconies, and terraced staircases. The building was approved in 1963 and dedicated to outgoing President Julius A. Stratton in 1965. Although initially well received, the complex design of the interior, a lack of storage space, heavy use by students, and austere exterior led to a major renovation in the late 1980s.
& Partners designed a number of MIT buildings, and produced a master plan for the southeast corner of the central campus. Pei was a graduate of MIT's Department of Architecture (BArch 1940).
, for a new building to house the geology and meteorology departments in a new Center for Earth Sciences. As Bosworth's plans for residential life on East Campus had not been fully realized, many departments had aspirations for utilizing the open space in Eastman Court. Pei and Hideo Sasaki
proposed siting a tall building in East Campus and breaking MIT's architectural tradition of "horizontality" The tower has some functional purpose, since its roof supports meteorological instruments and radio communications equipment, plus a white spherical radome
enclosing long-distance weather radar
apparatus.
The tower rises 21 stories to 295 feet (90 m), breaking Cambridge's previous 80 feet (24 m) restriction on building height. However, the footprint of every floor measures only 60 by 120 feet (18 by 36m), which research groups quickly outgrew, forcing some of them to disperse elsewhere on campus. The isolated prominence of the building and its relative proximity to the open river basin also increased wind loads at its base, which prevented people from entering or leaving the building through the hinged main doors on windy days. Revolving doors were installed at the ground floor entries to ameliorate this problem somewhat. It is incorrectly rumored that Alexander Calder
's Big Sail, situated in front of the building, was meant to deflect these winds. The sculpture is situated too far from the building entryway to have much effect on wind velocities there.
The Green Building remains the only academic tower on campus, and faculty insistence as well as logistical realities have continued MIT's previous "horizontal continuity".
tower which rises to its east. The floorplan deviates from MIT's traditional central corridor scheme by placing the laboratory and office space away from the windows by means of exterior corridors. The interior space consists of a research community of graduate students working in laboratory modules at the center, and faculty offices, lobbies, and teaching areas at each end of the building. A major renovation to the 132000 square feet (12,263.2 m²) building was completed in 2003.
and the List Visual Arts Center and is named in honor of former MIT president Jerome Wiesner
and his wife Laya. The building is very box-like, a motif that is consistently repeated in both the interior and exterior design evoking a sense of boxes packed within each other. It also has the nickname of the "Inverted Bathroom" due to its tiled exterior.
The building is notable for the level of collaboration between the architect and artists. It stands apart from the surrounding neighborhood with its flat, gridded skin make of white, modular metal panels. The building's exterior was designed by Kenneth Noland
is meant as a metaphor of technology through the grids of graph paper and number matrices while also quoting the corridor-like morphology of the rest of the MIT campus. Scott Burton
, Alan Shields, and Richard Fleischner
also collaborated extensively in the final design of the internal atria and external landscaping.
Brown Building (Building 39) – pg.66
Center for Advanced Engineering Study (Building 9) – pg. 59
McNair Building (building 37) – pg. 57
. The entire complex is often referred to as the Z-Center, with Johnson simply referring to one section of the complex. The Johnson Center houses MIT's varsity
fencing
, ice hockey
, tennis
, and track & field teams.
The first floor includes a seasonal ice rink
, team locker-room and equipment facilities, athletic trainers'
offices and workspace, and an Au Bon Pain. The ice rink doubles, in the off-season, as an arena which hosts, among other events, the Career Fair and the annual Spring Weekend Concert. The second floor connects to the Zesiger Center's DAPER offices and pool gallery. The third floor consists of an indoor track and field space, including a small weights area, which often must be shared by MIT's spring athletic teams early in the season, as the Cambridge
weather tends to be too cold and/or snowy to practice outside. During finals week, the (ice-free) ice rink and indoor track are utilized to administer final exams for large classes requiring the ample space.
(Z-Center) was designed by Kevin Roche
and John Dinkeloo & Associates, (2002). It features an Olympic-class, 50-meter by 25-yard, swimming pool, plus a separate 8-lane, 25-yard teaching pool, two levels of weight and aerobic equipment, the multi-purpose Muckley MAC Court, the Folger, Steinman and Jules squash courts, and offices for DAPER staff. It is the home of MIT's water polo, swimming & diving, and squash teams.
The Zesiger Center is connected to the Johnson Athletic Center, the Rockwell Cage, and the DuPont Athletic Center as part of the Main DAPER Complex. However, the entire complex is often referred to as the Z-Center
among the MIT community while Johnson, Rockwell, and DuPont refer to areas within the complex.
and Associates were chosen to lead the design for a new "porous" dormitory in 1999. Simmons Hall opened in August 2002 for student occupancy.
The building has 350 student rooms, 5,538 2-foot square windows, and is constructed of 291 precast, steel-reinforced Perfcon panels.
, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research
.
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 ceremonial main entrance, was originally planned by 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." The New England Hurricane of 1938
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."
, Henry Moore
, Alexander Calder
, Jacques Lipchitz
, Dan Flavin
, Dan Graham
, Sarah Sze
, Tony Smith
, Theodore Roszak
, Harry Bertoia
, Jean-Robert Ipousteguy
, Auguste Rodin
, Anish Kapoor
, Mark di Suvero
, Louise Nevelson, Sol Lewitt
, Frank Stella
, Cai Guo-Qiang
, and others. Many smaller works of art are visible in offices and hallways, and even residences, under the Student Loan Art Program. The MIT List Visual Arts Center oversees the more than 1,500 works catalogued in the MIT Permanent Art Collection, which can be browsed online.
A self-guided walking tour map of major on-campus art is available from MIT information desks or online, and live guided tours are offered sometimes to the general public. For a number of recent "Public Art Commissions on the MIT Campus", a brochure can be downloaded describing the artwork in detail.
In May 2011, the general public was invited to a weekend FAST (Festival of Art, Science, and Technology) tour of temporary art installations, as part of the MIT 150 celebration of the 150th anniversary of MIT's founding charter. The event was well-attended and popular, inviting the possibility of more such events in the future.
Although not part of the MIT campus, the nearby MBTA subway stop at Kendall Station is the site of the three-piece Kendall Band
. This artwork is an interactive sound sculpture which was designed and built by Paul Matisse
, grandson of French artist Henri Matisse
, and stepson of surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp
. The sound sculpture proved so popular that it was frequently worn out or broken, disappointing visitors. In 2010, it was adopted by the "Kendall Band Preservation Society", a group of MIT students and staff who have redesigned and rebuilt some of the broken mechanisms (with the approval of the artist) that made the sculpture operate.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
is located on a 168 acres (68 ha) tract in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The campus spans approximately one mile (1.6 km) of the north side of the Charles River
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
basin directly opposite the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The campus includes dozens of buildings representing diverse architectural styles and shifting campus priorities over MIT's history
History of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology can be traced back to the 1861 incorporation of the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Society of Natural History" led primarily by William Barton Rogers.-Vision and mission:...
. 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. Each era was marked by distinct builds representing neoclassical, modernist
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
, brutalist, and deconstructivist
Deconstructivism
Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of...
styles which alternatively represent a commitment to utilitarian minimalism and embellished exuberance.
Campus organization
The geographical organization of the MIT campus is much easier to understand by referring to the MIT map, in online interactive, or downloadable printable form. There is also an MIT Accessibility Campus Map available for download, which is useful for mobility-impaired visitors, or anyone wheeling a heavy load.Buildings 1–10 (excepting 9) were the original main campus, with Building 10, the location of the Great Dome, designed to be the ceremonial main entrance. The actual street entrance leads from 77 Massachusetts Avenue into the lobby of Building 7, at the western end of the "Infinite Corridor
Infinite Corridor
The Infinite Corridor is the hallway, 251 metres long, that runs through the main buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specifically parts of the buildings numbered 7, 3, 10, 4, and 8...
", which forms the east-west axis of the main group of buildings. Buildings 1–8 are arranged symmetrically around Building 10, with odd-numbered buildings to the west and even-numbered buildings to the east. In general, higher numbers are assigned to buildings as distance from the center of campus increases.
The east side of main 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" series 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 Building); those West of Massachusetts Avenue generally start with a W (e.g., W20, the Stratton Student Center).
Buildings North of the railroad tracks paralleling Vassar Street are prefixed with N, while those northerly structures that are also West of Massachusetts Avenue are designated with NW. A single building at the far West end of campus is designated "WW15", possibly to avoid assigning a 3-digit building number. The prefix NE appears to be used for buildings north of Main Street, even for structures actually located due north of other buildings designated with N.
Buildings that are far from the main campus are prefixed OC, for off campus. There are no buildings prefixed with S, since the campus is bordered at its southern edge by the Charles River
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
.
To identify a particular room within a building, the room number is simply appended to the building number, using a "-" (e.g. Room 26–100, a large first-floor auditorium in Building 26). The floor number is indicated in the usual way, by the leading digit(s) of the room number, with a leading digit 0 indicating a basement location.
The practice of identifying buildings by number is a long-standing tradition at MIT. Although sometimes ridiculed as evidence of an "engineering mindset", and referred to as "a system that disorients outsiders", this system is somewhat logical, and allows members of the MIT community to quickly locate a classroom they may never have seen before. Contrast this system with the building identification at nearby Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, where knowing the location of "Maxwell-Dworkin" will not help in locating "Claverson" or "Larsen" — no matter how many years of experience one may have, one either knows these locations or has no idea where they may be. Under the MIT numbering scheme, community members will know approximately where Building NW95 must be, even if they have never been near there. Using the MIT building number system, students can even extrapolate a building number for a fanciful future annexation of Cambridge City Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts City Hall
The Cambridge, Massachusetts City Hall is the city hall for Cambridge, Massachusetts, located at 795 Massachusetts Avenue, and built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style...
.
Most MIT buildings do have names, which can be found on many maps, or carved near the entrance, molded into a bronze plaque, or lettered onto a glass window. Many buildings are popularly known by name (e.g. "Kresge Auditorium"), even as individual rooms are identified by number (e.g. W16-100). Some locations have dual designations in common use (e.g. "Huntington Hall", better known as "10–250", which is an auditorium located on the second floor, under the Great Dome in Building 10). Building names can also be obtained from either the interactive online or downloadable MIT map.
There are numerous minor refinements, tweaks, and exceptions in the room numbering and naming, providing plenty of material for a trivia contest, or for sussing out would-be imposters. The student-written MIT guide, How To Get Around MIT (HowToGAMIT) devotes almost 4 pages of small print to details of MIT geography.
Boston Tech (1865–1910)
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
over several decades. The City of Boston reserved several lots for churches, museums, and other community buildings. A lot bounded on the north and south by Newbury and Boylston streets, and to the east and west by Berkeley and Clarendon streets, was awarded to the newly-founded Boston Natural History Society and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
William G. Preston
William G. Preston
William G. Preston was an American architect. He was active in Boston and Georgia, where he designed the De Soto Hotel and the Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory...
designed three buildings to occupy the site, although the original plan for an "MIT Museum" was never built. The Natural History Society building, completed in 1862, occupied the easternmost third, facing Berkeley street. The MIT building, later called the Rogers Building, occupied the center, and faced Boylston street. It was not opened until 1865 owing to delays because of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The five-story Rogers building featured a "grand tetra-style Corinthian portico" modeled on the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
's remodeled Apsley House
Apsley House
Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...
.
MIT quickly outgrew this space as new schools, departments, and laboratories were founded. In 1886, the five-story (original) Walker Memorial building housing the Physics and Chemistry departments was built in the space to the west of the Rogers building. The original Walker Memorial building, designed by Carl Fehmer
Carl Fehmer
Carl Fehmer was a prominent Boston architect during the 19th century.-Biography:Fehmer was born in Germany to Heinrich Fehmer and Maria Fehmer...
, consisted of a more subdued, industrial arcade motif compared to the surrounding fashionable buildings. As Jarzombek suggests, "the choice of this style, even for such a prominent urban space, was clearly MIT's and a testament to its desire to promote the ideals of scientific professionalism." More annexes, given utilitarian names "Engineering Buildings A, B, and C" were designed in the same industrial manner, and built between 1889 and 1900 on a site south of the Trinity Church
Trinity Church, Boston
Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Bay of Boston, Massachusetts, is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation, currently standing at approximately 3,000 households, was founded in 1733. The current rector is The Reverend Anne Bonnyman...
.
After MIT's move to Cambridge in 1916, the original Rogers and Walker buildings were eventually torn down in 1939 to make way for the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company building. Their sibling structure, the Natural History Society building, has survived to the present day by hosting a succession of retail stores after its original tenant moved to the current location of the Museum of Science Boston. The city block that originally contained the Engineering annexes is now the site where the John Hancock Tower
John Hancock Tower
The John Hancock Tower, officially named Hancock Place and colloquially known as The Hancock, is a 60-story, 790-foot skyscraper in Boston. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb of the firm I. M. Pei & Partners and was completed in 1976...
stands.
The names of Rogers and Walker were both re-applied to new MIT buildings (Building 7 and Building 50, respectively) erected across the Charles River in Cambridge, in the early 1900s.
The New Technology (1910–1940)
Impetus
By the turn of the century, demands for new space for laboratories, offices, housing, and student unions were outstripping the land available in the now-fashionable Back Bay neighborhood, where real estate prices had risen rapidly. Other institutes of technology in ChicagoIllinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...
and Pittsburgh
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, state universities founded under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges, including the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Morrill Act of 1890 -Passage of original bill:...
, and private universities like Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
were closing the gap on MIT's early lead on laboratory-based education, with large and modern laboratories placed amongst large, park-like campuses. MIT repeatedly resisted overtures from Harvard President Charles William Eliot
Charles William Eliot
Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. He transformed the provincial college into the preeminent American research university...
to merge the schools, and after President Richard C. Maclaurin was elected in 1909, he began to search for sites to relocate the Institute.
A 50 acres (202,343 m²) site in Cambridge, recovered from the Charles River
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
and set amongst dirty factories and tenement housing, was ultimately selected for the construction of a new campus. Thomas Coleman du Pont, a graduate of MIT's Chemistry department donated $500,000 to be used towards the purchase of the land under a promise from President Maclaurin that the first building constructed would be for Chemistry. The site abutted Massachusetts Avenue (which crossed the river on the Harvard Bridge
Harvard Bridge
The Harvard Bridge carries Massachusetts Avenue from Back Bay, Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is the longest bridge over the Charles River....
) along which were many newly built neo-classical structures like Langdell Hall
Langdell Hall
Langdell Hall is the largest building on the campus of Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is home to the school's library, the largest academic law library in the world, and is named for pioneering law school dean Christopher Columbus Langdell...
, Christian Science Center Church, and Symphony Hall
Symphony Hall, Boston
Symphony Hall is a concert hall located at 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by McKim, Mead and White, it was built in 1900 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which continues to make the hall its home. The hall was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1999...
on the Boston side, with which MIT's new Cambridge campus would have to compete. In Maclaurin's words, "We have a glorious site and glorious opportunities, but our task of design is not made more easy by the great expectations of Boston."
Initial proposals
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry Hobson Richardson....
, Stephen Child
Stephen Child
Stephen Child was an American architect and landscape architect. He received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1888 in civil engineering. He served as the deputy street commissioner and superintendent of the sewer department in Newton, Massachusetts between 1891 and 1901...
, Constant-Désiré Despradelle, and John Ripley Freeman
John Ripley Freeman
John Ripley Freeman was an American civil and hydraulic engineer. Freeman was born in West Bridgton, Maine and received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1876...
. Shepley's and Child's plans incorporated Georgian Revival styled, L-shaped, brick buildings set on symmetric grass avenues or quads, much like the recently-completed Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, but were inappropriately sized for the industrial research that would occur within. Despradelle's Beaux-Arts proposal would have partitioned the campus into separate zones for academic, research, and residential activities, but its World's-Fair-like layout provided insufficient space for laboratories. His later iterations solved the laboratory space problems, but provided uncomfortable proximity and insufficient space for the residences as well as being enormously expensive.
After Despradelle's sudden death in 1912, Freeman's "Study No. 7" was thrust to the fore. His proposal, based on Taylorism, was "one-fifth architecture and four-fifths a problem of industrial engineering." He proposed connecting all departmental buildings to prevent the emergence of academic fiefdoms, to provide protection from bad weather. and to enable efficiencies of scale by building a massive, one million square-foot building incorporating the administrative, teaching, and research functions. The proposed five-story building resembled a large "E" with the base aligned to the river, with "cloistered" courtyards and a pedimented Doric exterior. Freeman also rejected using masonry walls, and proposed using reinforced concrete, a material that was then thought to be both expensive and unconventional. President Maclaurin and MIT's Executive Committee sought to hire an established architect, rather than an ambitious engineer, to design the campus and briefly retained Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert
- Historical impact :Gilbert is considered a skyscraper pioneer; when designing the Woolworth Building he moved into unproven ground — though he certainly was aware of the ground-breaking work done by Chicago architects on skyscrapers and once discussed merging firms with the legendary Daniel...
before conflicts with a determined Freeman drove him off.
Bosworth's design
Under the advice of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. was a major philanthropist and a pivotal member of the prominent Rockefeller family. He was the sole son among the five children of businessman and Standard Oil industrialist John D. Rockefeller and the father of the five famous Rockefeller brothers...
, Maclaurin chose Rockefeller's personal architect, MIT graduate William Welles Bosworth, to lead the next round of designs. In no small part, he was chosen because of his willingness to work for clients with strong personal convictions. Bosworth was trained in the Beaux-Arts style and was influenced by the City Beautiful movement
City Beautiful movement
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy concerning North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago,...
which was at its height at the time.
Bosworth's proposal retained many elements of the previous proposals: a large, multi-armed building with room for future expansion and a large central court, but also successfully integrated the dormitories into the rest of the complex. The campus would be oriented around two major east-west cross axes connecting the western academic half of campus with the residential eastern half of campus. Each half of campus would in turn be oriented around separate north-south axes, the western oriented its open green space towards the river and Boston while the eastern oriented its track and tennis courts northward into Cambridge. 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. However, later revisions began to incorporate more elements originally found in Freeman's designs such as double-loaded corridors and "open-grid, concrete structure with crossbeams supported by pairs of columns in the middle."
Maclaurin Buildings and Great Dome (1916)
The Great Dome, which sits atop Building 10, is modeled on McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead, and White
McKim, Mead & White was a prominent American architectural firm at the turn of the twentieth century and in the history of American architecture. The firm's founding partners were Charles Follen McKim , William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White...
's Low Memorial Library
Low Memorial Library
The Low Memorial Library is the administrative center of Columbia University. Built in 1895 by University President Seth Low in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low, and financed with $1 million of Low's own money due to the recalcitrance of university alumni, it is the focal point and most...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, which is in turn an imitation of the Pantheon
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
in Rome. The Dome was originally planned to be a cavernous assembly hall, but budget limitations threatened to prevent construction of the Dome altogether. A smaller library (now the Barker Engineering Library) and lecture hall (10–250) instead filled the space. Architectural historian Mark Jarzombek later described the library space as a "capacious oculus [admitting] light into its center, and its perimeter surrounded by a row of Corinthian columns. Four curved topped aedicules [add] a counter-punctual element. More baroque in flavor that what one normally might have expected from Bosworth, the building seems in fact to be an inside-out quotation from Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...
's St. Paul's Cathedral."
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. This is a classical optical illusion
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
also used in the Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...
of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
to make the line of columns appear straight. Bosworth replicated this technique at MIT; to observe it, one has to lie down and sight along the front of the steps.
Students of the Institute often refer to the center of the Great Dome as "The Center of the Universe".
Killian Court (1916)
James Rhyne Killian
Dr. James Rhyne Killian, Jr. was the 10th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 1948 until 1959.-Career:...
, faces the river and the Boston skyline and "emphasizes the institution's openness to the urban environment and fulfills Maclaurin's ambition." Killian Court was originally hard-paved, but was converted into a park-like area of grass and trees in the late 1920s. Bosworth had planned to install a three-story-high statue of Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
at the center of the court, but funds for this embellishment were never appropriated. Today, Killian Court is the site of the annual Commencement ceremony, and is otherwise used for studying, relaxing, and playing Frisbee
Frisbee
A flying disc is a disc-shaped glider that is generally plastic and roughly in diameter, with a lip. The shape of the disc, an airfoil in cross-section, allows it to fly by generating lift as it moves through the air while rotating....
games in good weather.
The friezes of the marble-clad buildings surrounding Killian Court are carved in large Roman letters with the names of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, Pastevr
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
, Lavoisier
Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...
, Faraday
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, Archimedes
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...
, da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, and Copernicvs; 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
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
, Cavendish
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish FRS was a British scientist noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and...
, Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
, Dalton
John Dalton
John Dalton FRS was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness .-Early life:John Dalton was born into a Quaker family at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth, Cumberland,...
, Gay Lvssac
Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac
- External links :* from the American Chemical Society* from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 10th Edition * , Paris...
, Berzelivs
Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Jöns Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist. He worked out the modern technique of chemical formula notation, and is together with John Dalton, Antoine Lavoisier, and Robert Boyle considered a father of modern chemistry...
, Woehler, Liebig
Justus von Liebig
Justus von Liebig was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organization of organic chemistry. As a professor, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the...
, Bvnsen
Robert Bunsen
Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium and rubidium with Gustav Kirchhoff. Bunsen developed several gas-analytical methods, was a pioneer in photochemistry, and did early work in the field of organoarsenic...
, Mendelejeff
Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev , was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements...
[sic], Perkin, and van't Hoff
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Jr. was a Dutch physical and organic chemist and the first winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He is best known for his discoveries in chemical kinetics, chemical equilibrium, osmotic pressure, and stereochemistry...
. The names are carved in the classic Roman square capitals
Roman square capitals
Roman square capitals, also called capitalis monumentalis, inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters....
using the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, with V instead of U, and I should have been used instead of J, since the latter letter of each pair did not exist in ancient times. Inexplicably, the letter J is used anyway, along with W, in spite of the blatant anachronisms.
Walker Memorial (1916)
Walker Memorial was dedicated to former President (and General) Francis Amasa WalkerFrancis Amasa Walker
Francis Amasa Walker was an American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator, and military officer in the Union Army. Walker was born into a prominent Boston family, the son of the economist and politician Amasa Walker, and he graduated from Amherst College at the age...
, a staunch advocate for student life. The Memorial was to have been designed in a "relaxed classical style with a generous convex portico overlooking the Charles River." However, cost overruns forced the scale of many planned buildings to be altered. A gymnasium, which had previously been separate from the Memorial, was integrated into a combined structure. Today, the gymnasium is used for dance and martial arts classes, as well as for the administration of midterm and final exams for large classes. The ground floor dining area is no longer used as a cafeteria, but remains open for campus functions. Walker Memorial also contains the administrative offices for many MIT student organizations.
Senior House (1916)
Senior House is an L-shaped building, designed by William Welles Bosworth. The Doric portico over the entrance was added in the 1990s. It has been used since its construction as a dormitory for undergraduates.Gray House (1917)
The Gray House is named after Paul Edward GrayPaul Edward Gray
Paul Edward Gray was the 14th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated from M.I.T. in 1954 with a degree in Electrical Engineering where he was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. He subsequently obtained an M.S. and Sc.D from M.I.T. in 1955 and 1960, and then...
, the fourteenth president of MIT (1980–1990). This residence for the MIT president is located adjacent to Senior House, and cradles inside the elbow of the L-shaped dormitory. The President's House was the last part of the original Bosworth campus to be constructed, and consists of a three-story structure with a simple, rectangular floor plan that incorporates a ballroom on the top floor.
Rogers Building (1939)
The Rogers Building, named for MIT founder William Barton RogersWilliam Barton Rogers
William Barton Rogers was a geologist, physicist and educator. He is best known for setting down the founding principles for, advocating for, and finally obtaining the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1861...
, is the second building of that name, the original having been demolished on its Back Bay site some years after MIT moved to Cambridge. Located at 77 Massachusetts Avenue, it is the official address of the entire Institute and serves as the entrance to the Infinite Corridor
Infinite Corridor
The Infinite Corridor is the hallway, 251 metres long, that runs through the main buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specifically parts of the buildings numbered 7, 3, 10, 4, and 8...
, the main artery connecting east campus with west campus. The Rogers Building was not a part of the original campus, but was built as a part of MIT's extension of the original Bosworth plan along Massachusetts Avenue. The spacious lobby (called Lobby 7 after its building number) is an impressive vestibule
Vestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
topped by a small dome that rejects the neoclassical tradition of reducing scale between the interior and exterior, with the result that the "inner space remains at the less intimate urban scale." The glass oculus
Oculus
An Oculus, circular window, or rain-hole is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. They are often denoted by their French name, oeil de boeuf, or "bull's-eye". Such circular or oval windows express the presence of a mezzanine on a building's façade without competing for...
at the top was blacked out during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
but was restored during a renovation in 2000. The School of Architecture and Planning
MIT School of Architecture and Planning
The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
is housed around the dome and the lobby court.
Alumni Pool (1940)
The Alumni Pool (Building 57) was designed by Lawrence B. AndersonLawrence B. Anderson
Lawrence Bernhart Anderson was an American architect and educator and an early proponent of the International Style in the US. He was born in Geneva, Minnesota, earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts in 1927 and a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1928, both from the University of Minnesota...
(MArch 1930) and Herbert L. Beckwith (BArch 1926, MArch 1927). The building was one of the first significant examples of modernist, International Style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
design in the United States by a US trained architect. In 2000, during the building of the adjoining Stata Center
Stata Center
The Ray and Maria Stata Center or Building 32 is a 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...
, the building was restored and most of the 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 and replaced by a more open landscaping. Nonetheless, the building still retains much of its early modernist sensibility, unornamented surfaces and simple functional design.
Building 20 (1942–1996)
Building 20 was erected hastily during World War II as a temporary building to house part of the now-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. LettvinJerome Lettvin
Jerome Ysroael Lettvin was a cognitive scientist and professor Emeritus of Electrical and Bioengineering and Communications Physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . He is best known as the author of the 1959 paper, "What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain", one of the most...
once quipped, "You might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by God it is procreative!" Building 20 was always regarded as "temporary", and thus never received a formal name over its half-century of existence. The structure was removed in 1996–98 to make way for the Stata Center
Stata Center
The Ray and Maria Stata Center or Building 32 is a 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...
. Some of its previous occupants moved into the Stata Center upon its completion, while other "Building 20 refugees" moved to Building N51/N52 or dispersed to other locations on campus.
Westgate (1945 & 1963)
Westgate was first established to provide student housing for the large numbers of veterans returning to study after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The demand for housing was unprecedented both in quantity as well as in qualitiy; students often were married and many had children to care for. A temporary community persisted for over a decade before the decision was made to create more-permanent housing for married students.
In its current incarnation, completed in 1963, Westgate consists of several low-rise buildings associated with a high-rise tower.
Rockwell Cage (1947)
The Rockwell Cage (W33) was designed by Herbert L. Beckwith and opened in 1947. The large structure was originally used by the military for indoor drills, and then declared as surplus. The structure was obtained by then-Athletic Director Ivan J. Geiger before the opening of the DuPont Athletic Center. Geiger was also key in transforming the Cage into MIT's basketball venue.Rockwell Cage was named for Dr. John Rockwell
John Rockwell
John Rockwell is a music critic, editor, and dance critic. He studied at Phillips Academy, Harvard, the University of Munich, and the University of California, Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in German culture....
, MIT class of 1896. He was a top athlete while a student, and returned in 1927 as the President of the Advisory Council for Athletics. Rockwell is currently the official venue for MIT basketball and volleyball, although the space, which spans three and a half basketball courts, is also used for collegiate and non-collegiate tournaments in other sports (such as gymnastics), as well as recreational badminton. In the fall of 2006 and 2007, the Rockwell Cage was the venue for the Northeast regional matches in the NCAA Division III
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
Women's Volleyball Championships
NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship
The NCAA has contested team championships in women's volleyball since 1981. The following is a list of the champions of each division with their record for the year in which they won the championship, and the runner up, city, site and other final four participants for division I...
.
The Rockwell Cage is part of the larger, interconnected Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) Complex, which is often referred to collectively as the "Z-Center". Rockwell is in the center of the complex, and is connected to the DuPont Athletic Center, Zesiger Center
Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center
The Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center is the central athletics facility at MIT since 2002. It is connected to Rockwell Cage, du Pont Gymnasium and the Johnson Athletic Center. MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation administrative offices are also housed in...
, and the Johnson Athletic Center.
Baker House (1949)
Alvar AaltoAlvar Aalto
Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware...
, a Finnish architect, designed Baker House. It has an undulating shape which allows most rooms a view of the Charles River
Charles River
The Charles River is an long river that flows in an overall northeasterly direction in eastern Massachusetts, USA. From its source in Hopkinton, the river travels through 22 cities and towns until reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Boston...
, and gives many of the rooms a wedge-shaped layout. Baker House has six floors, with rooms for 1–4 people, and features a largely brick interior with wooden furniture and trim. The basement level contains Baker Dining, one of the four residential dining halls on campus, and the only one which is open seven nights a week.
Aalto also designed the furniture, much of which was intended to fit in specific rooms in order to maximize the limited space. Several of these furniture pieces were given various animal names. Each resident has a large, wheeled wardrobe (no closets in the brick rooms) called an "elephant" and thigh-high rolling case of drawers called an "armadillo," which fits neatly under the desks. Occupants of the largest singles, called "couches" because they are large enough to accommodate such furniture, also have free-standing sets of shelving called "giraffes." The giraffe is so-named because piece consists of pole, which is pressed into the floor and ceiling and thus is position-adjustable, adorned with several shelves that protrude in one direction and only rise to waist height, creating a giraffe-like shape. Many residents choose to flip their giraffes upside-down in order to have more floor space.
Hayden Memorial Library (1950)
The Charles Hayden Memorial Library building is located adjacent to Building 2 along Memorial Drive. Built in response to the Lewis Committee findings, it originally housed all of the humanities faculty, although growth of these departments has since required more space. The building features large 2-story bay-windows overlooking both the Charles River to the south and Eastman Courtyard to the north, as well as high ceilings in the library spaces.MIT Chapel (1955)
Eero SaarinenEero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
, a Finnish architect, designed the non-denominational MIT Chapel. The chapel exterior consists of a plain brick cylinder 33 feet (10.1 m) 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. The sculptor Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....
designed the suspended metallic screen behind the altar.
Kresge Auditorium (1955)
The Auditorium was intended as a type of university meeting hall, those words being, in fact, inscribed over the entrance. Its domed roof is exactly one-eighth of a sphere.DuPont Athletic Center and Gymnasium (1959)
The DuPont Athletic Center and DuPont Gymnasium, Buildings W32 and W31, respectively, are located at the east end of the interconnected Main DAPER Complex. Building W31 was originally built as a State Armory, but was later acquired by MIT and converted to a gymnasium in an early example of "adaptive re-use" on the MIT campus.The buildings are named for David Flett DuPont, who contributed a million dollars toward the improvement of athletic facilities, whose bequest also facilitated the building of twelve outdoor tennis courts. DuPont, as the two buildings are collectively known, was the third athletic building constructed on campus, and the second component of what is now the DAPER Complex (often collectively known as the Z-Center). The Athletic Center (W32) is connected to and immediately west of the Gymnasium (W31), and adjacent on the other side to the Rockwell Cage and the Zesiger Center
Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center
The Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center is the central athletics facility at MIT since 2002. It is connected to Rockwell Cage, du Pont Gymnasium and the Johnson Athletic Center. MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation administrative offices are also housed in...
. W32 houses MIT's fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, and rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
teams, while W31 is home to gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, and wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
(although they may compete in the Rockwell Cage). The T-club Lounge is located at the DuPont Athletic Center and is the main venue for DAPER exercise classes.
Building W31 is also home to MIT's Center for Real Estate, founded in 1983, and located on the 3rd floor.
Second Century Fund (1960–1990)
The Second Century Convocation (1961), commemorated the 100th anniversary of MIT's founding charter, and spearheaded a major fund-raising and construction drive. The period between 1960 and 1990 was marked by a drastic increase in the size of the campus, and nearly-continous construction activity, tapering off somewhat in the late 70s and 80s.Over the years, MIT has made an effort to bring noted architects to campus for particular commissions.
McCormick Hall (1963)
Although women had been enrolling at MIT since the 1880s, they constituted a tiny minority of the total undergraduate population and lived in a town house across the river. In 1959, MIT released a report, The Woman at MIT, which outlined the need to expand residential and social opportunities for female students. In 1960, Katharine Dexter McCormick '04 pledged $1.5 million towards the construction of an on-campus female dormitory.Professor Herbert L. Beckwith was named architect of the project and he proposed a pair of towers on a riverside plot between Memorial Drive and the Kresge Court. Construction required the relocation of a Catholic nursing order, busy parking lot, and existing student housing. Building was broken into two phases: the West Wing was completed in 1963 and the East Wing was completed in 1968. The towers are connected by public spaces like a dining hall, dance studio, and music room at the ground floor. The building has attracted some criticism for its inefficient use of space, but it was renovated in the late 1990s.
Hermann Building (1965)
The Grover M. Hermann Building (E53) houses Dewey Library and the Department of Political Science. As the Sloan School of Management expanded like other departments after the war, it quickly faced a shortage of space in its original building at 50 Memorial Drive (E52) which was only acquired in 1952. Professor Eduardo F. Catalano prepared a Sloan Campus Plan incorporating a plaza connecting a new academic building, Building E52, and parking. Grover Hermann of the Martin Marietta Company contributed funds for the four-story building set on a plinthPlinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
. The building has been criticized by its inhabitants for its lack of natural light and "fortress architecture."
Eastgate (1967)
Eastgate (E55) tower was completed and first occupied in August 1967. The building hosts family housing (students with spouses/partners and/or children) as well as a day care center.Stratton Student Center (1968)
Walker Memorial had originally served as the home for many student activity groups for several decades, but the growing post-war student population required the construction of a new and larger building. The first proposals originated in 1955 after the opening of Kresge Auditorium and Chapel had firmly planted MIT's presence on the other side of Massachusetts Avenue. Saarinen was again retained again to design the new structure, but was dropped after his proposal met with resistance from faculty and donors.Professor Eduardo F. Catalano replaced Saarinen in 1961 and proposed a structure that would house meeting and practice rooms as well as commercial areas like a post office, tailor, barbershop, and bowling alley. The proposed building was a monumentally imposing structure representing a high form of brutalism and included large glass windows, balconies, and terraced staircases. The building was approved in 1963 and dedicated to outgoing President Julius A. Stratton in 1965. Although initially well received, the complex design of the interior, a lack of storage space, heavy use by students, and austere exterior led to a major renovation in the late 1980s.
I.M. Pei
I. M. PeiI. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei , commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou...
& Partners designed a number of MIT buildings, and produced a master plan for the southeast corner of the central campus. Pei was a graduate of MIT's Department of Architecture (BArch 1940).
Green Building (1964)
By the late 1950s, many smaller but rapidly expanding departments were outgrowing their spaces. Professor Robert R. Shrock solicited Cecil H. Green '23, the founder of Texas InstrumentsTexas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
, for a new building to house the geology and meteorology departments in a new Center for Earth Sciences. As Bosworth's plans for residential life on East Campus had not been fully realized, many departments had aspirations for utilizing the open space in Eastman Court. Pei and Hideo Sasaki
Hideo Sasaki
Sasaki Hideo was an influential American landscape architect.-Biography:Sasaki Hideo was born in Reedley, California, on 25 November 1919. He grew up working on his family's California truck farm, and harvesting crops on Arizona farms. He began his college studies at the University of California,...
proposed siting a tall building in East Campus and breaking MIT's architectural tradition of "horizontality" The tower has some functional purpose, since its roof supports meteorological instruments and radio communications equipment, plus a white spherical radome
Radome
A radome is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a microwave or radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material that minimally attenuates the electromagnetic signal transmitted or received by the antenna. In other words, the radome is transparent to radar or radio waves...
enclosing long-distance weather radar
Weather radar
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...
apparatus.
The tower rises 21 stories to 295 feet (90 m), breaking Cambridge's previous 80 feet (24 m) restriction on building height. However, the footprint of every floor measures only 60 by 120 feet (18 by 36m), which research groups quickly outgrew, forcing some of them to disperse elsewhere on campus. The isolated prominence of the building and its relative proximity to the open river basin also increased wind loads at its base, which prevented people from entering or leaving the building through the hinged main doors on windy days. Revolving doors were installed at the ground floor entries to ameliorate this problem somewhat. It is incorrectly rumored that Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
's Big Sail, situated in front of the building, was meant to deflect these winds. The sculpture is situated too far from the building entryway to have much effect on wind velocities there.
The Green Building remains the only academic tower on campus, and faculty insistence as well as logistical realities have continued MIT's previous "horizontal continuity".
Dreyfus Building (1970)
The Camille Edouard Dreyfus Building (Building 18) houses the Chemistry Department. The linear building parallels Eastman Laboratory (Building 6) to the west, and architecturally evokes a horizontal version of the Green BuildingGreen Building (MIT)
The Cecil and Ida Green Building, also called the Green Building or Building 54, is an academic and research building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It was designed by noted architect I. M. Pei, who received his bachelor's degree from MIT in...
tower which rises to its east. The floorplan deviates from MIT's traditional central corridor scheme by placing the laboratory and office space away from the windows by means of exterior corridors. The interior space consists of a research community of graduate students working in laboratory modules at the center, and faculty offices, lobbies, and teaching areas at each end of the building. A major renovation to the 132000 square feet (12,263.2 m²) building was completed in 2003.
Landau Building (1976)
The Landau Building (Building 66) houses the Chemical Engineering Department. It is shaped as a 30-60-90 triangle, with the sharpest point directed toward Ames Street. The unusual shape has earned the building a nickname, "The Triangle Building," deviating from the usual practice of referring to campus buildings by number.Wiesner Building (1985)
The Wiesner building (Building E15) houses the MIT Media LabMIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
and the List Visual Arts Center and is named in honor of former MIT president Jerome Wiesner
Jerome Wiesner
Jerome Bert Wiesner was an educator, a Science Advisor to U.S. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson, an advocate for arms control, and a critic of anti-ballistic-missile defense systems...
and his wife Laya. The building is very box-like, a motif that is consistently repeated in both the interior and exterior design evoking a sense of boxes packed within each other. It also has the nickname of the "Inverted Bathroom" due to its tiled exterior.
The building is notable for the level of collaboration between the architect and artists. It stands apart from the surrounding neighborhood with its flat, gridded skin make of white, modular metal panels. The building's exterior was designed by Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
is meant as a metaphor of technology through the grids of graph paper and number matrices while also quoting the corridor-like morphology of the rest of the MIT campus. Scott Burton
Scott Burton
Scott Burton was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.-Early years:...
, Alan Shields, and Richard Fleischner
Richard Fleischner
Richard Fleischner is a Providence, RI based environmental artist. Born in New York in 1944, he received a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and began working in the 1960s.-Installations:-Awards:*Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts...
also collaborated extensively in the final design of the internal atria and external landscaping.
Dormitories
From MIT Housing Chronology- 1960: Burton-Conner Dining Room
- 1968: Random Hall (NW61) opened. Undergraduate 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.
Tang Hall (1973)
Tang Hall (W84) is organized into small apartment suites on each floor, occupied by unmarried graduate students. The building structure is unusual at MIT, in that it is made of modular reinforced concrete structural elements, prefabricated off-site. On the campus, this method has usually been reserved for free-standing parking garage structures."Backyard"
Buildings 34-36-38 – pg.101Brown Building (Building 39) – pg.66
Center for Advanced Engineering Study (Building 9) – pg. 59
McNair Building (building 37) – pg. 57
Whitaker College (1982)
Whitaker College (Building E25) houses the College of Health Sciences and Technology as well as MIT Medical.Johnson Athletic Center (1981)
The Howard W. Johnson Athletic Center, named for MIT's 12th president, is located at the west end of the interconnected DAPER Complex, immediately adjacent to the Zesiger CenterZesiger Sports and Fitness Center
The Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center is the central athletics facility at MIT since 2002. It is connected to Rockwell Cage, du Pont Gymnasium and the Johnson Athletic Center. MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation administrative offices are also housed in...
. The entire complex is often referred to as the Z-Center, with Johnson simply referring to one section of the complex. The Johnson Center houses MIT's varsity
Varsity team
In the United States and Canada, varsity sports teams are the principal athletic teams representing a college, university, high school or other secondary school. Such teams compete against the principal athletic teams at other colleges/universities, or in the case of secondary schools, against...
fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, and track & field teams.
The first floor includes a seasonal ice rink
Ice rink
An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can skate or play winter sports. Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, figure skating and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows...
, team locker-room and equipment facilities, athletic trainers'
Athletic trainer
An athletic trainer is a certified, health care professional who practices in the field of sports medicine. Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association as an allied health care profession since 1990....
offices and workspace, and an Au Bon Pain. The ice rink doubles, in the off-season, as an arena which hosts, among other events, the Career Fair and the annual Spring Weekend Concert. The second floor connects to the Zesiger Center's DAPER offices and pool gallery. The third floor consists of an indoor track and field space, including a small weights area, which often must be shared by MIT's spring athletic teams early in the season, as the Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
weather tends to be too cold and/or snowy to practice outside. During finals week, the (ice-free) ice rink and indoor track are utilized to administer final exams for large classes requiring the ample space.
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 (many of which had no prior connection to MIT) to propose dramatic new buildings to contrast the earlier, more "mundane" buildings. 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.Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center (2002)
The Zesiger Sports and Fitness CenterZesiger Sports and Fitness Center
The Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center is the central athletics facility at MIT since 2002. It is connected to Rockwell Cage, du Pont Gymnasium and the Johnson Athletic Center. MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation administrative offices are also housed in...
(Z-Center) was designed by Kevin Roche
Kevin Roche
Kevin Roche is an Irish-American architect known for his creative work with glass.Born in Dublin, Roche spent his formative years in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork before he graduated from University College Dublin in 1945. He then worked with Michael Scott from 1945-1946...
and John Dinkeloo & Associates, (2002). It features an Olympic-class, 50-meter by 25-yard, swimming pool, plus a separate 8-lane, 25-yard teaching pool, two levels of weight and aerobic equipment, the multi-purpose Muckley MAC Court, the Folger, Steinman and Jules squash courts, and offices for DAPER staff. It is the home of MIT's water polo, swimming & diving, and squash teams.
The Zesiger Center is connected to the Johnson Athletic Center, the Rockwell Cage, and the DuPont Athletic Center as part of the Main DAPER Complex. However, the entire complex is often referred to as the Z-Center
Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center
The Al and Barrie Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center is the central athletics facility at MIT since 2002. It is connected to Rockwell Cage, du Pont Gymnasium and the Johnson Athletic Center. MIT's Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation administrative offices are also housed in...
among the MIT community while Johnson, Rockwell, and DuPont refer to areas within the complex.
Simmons Hall (2002)
After the alcohol-related death of an MIT freshman living in an off-campus fraternity in 1998, the MIT administration settled the resulting lawsuit under the stipulation that all freshmen be required to live on campus, resulting in a need for beds for 300 freshmen who previously would have lived in off-campus fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups. Steven HollSteven Holl
Steven Holl is an American architect and watercolorist, perhaps best known for the 1998 Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland, the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the celebrated 2007 Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,...
and Associates were chosen to lead the design for a new "porous" dormitory in 1999. Simmons Hall opened in August 2002 for student occupancy.
The building has 350 student rooms, 5,538 2-foot square windows, and is constructed of 291 precast, steel-reinforced Perfcon panels.
Brain and Cognitive Sciences Building (2006)
Building 46, which houses the Picower Institute for Learning and MemoryPicower Institute for Learning and Memory
The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is, along with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, one of the three neuroscience groups at MIT...
, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research is a research institute within MIT. Its mission is to understand how the brain works and to discover new ways to prevent or treat brain disorders...
.
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 OlmstedFrederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
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)
Memorial Drive (Cambridge)
Memorial Drive runs along the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is designated as U.S. Route 3 or Massachusetts Route 3 for its entire length, and Massachusetts Route 2 over the portion west of the Boston University Bridge....
into the campus by using courtyards enclosed and overlooked by the academic buildings. Killian (née Great) Court, the ceremonial main entrance, was originally planned by Mabel Babcock '08 to be a French-style gravel-covered court centered around a large statue of Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
. 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
English basement
An English basement is an apartment on the lowest floor of a building, generally a townhouse or brownstone, which is partially below and partially above ground level and which has its own separate entrance from the rest of the building...
to the first floor of the new buildings." The New England Hurricane of 1938
New England Hurricane of 1938
The New England Hurricane of 1938 was the first major hurricane to strike New England since 1869...
and Dutch Elm Disease
Dutch elm disease
Dutch elm disease is a disease caused by a member of the sac fungi category, affecting elm trees which is spread by the elm bark beetle. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease has been accidentally introduced into America and Europe, where it has devastated native...
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
Hideo Sasaki
Sasaki Hideo was an influential American landscape architect.-Biography:Sasaki Hideo was born in Reedley, California, on 25 November 1919. He grew up working on his family's California truck farm, and harvesting crops on Arizona farms. He began his college studies at the University of California,...
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."
Artwork
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has hundreds of sculptures and other art-related publicly-viewable installations scattered across its campus. The MIT art collection includes major works by Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
, Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
, Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...
, Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
, Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze
Sarah Sze is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City. Sze uses ordinary objects to create sculptures and site-specific installations.-Early life:Sze graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale University in 1991...
, Tony Smith
Tony Smith (sculptor)
Tony Smith was an American sculptor, visual artist, architectural designer, and a noted theorist on art. He is often cited as a pioneering figure in American Minimalist sculpture.-Education:...
, Theodore Roszak
Theodore Roszak (artist)
Theodore Roszak was an American sculptor and painter. He was born in Posen, Prussia , now Poznań, Poland, as a son of Polish parents, and emigrated to the United States at the age of two...
, Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia
Harry Bertoia , was an Italian-born artist, sculptor, and modern furniture designer....
, Jean-Robert Ipousteguy
Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy
Jean-Robert Ipoustéguy , a French sculptor, was born "Jean Robert" in Dun-sur-Meuse.Studied painting and drawing in Paris in 1938, under Robert Lesbounit....
, Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor CBE RA is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai , Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice...
, Mark di Suvero
Mark di Suvero
Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...
, Louise Nevelson, Sol Lewitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese contemporary artist and curator.-Biography:Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy from 1981 to 1985. Cai's work is scholarly and often politically charged...
, and others. Many smaller works of art are visible in offices and hallways, and even residences, under the Student Loan Art Program. The MIT List Visual Arts Center oversees the more than 1,500 works catalogued in the MIT Permanent Art Collection, which can be browsed online.
A self-guided walking tour map of major on-campus art is available from MIT information desks or online, and live guided tours are offered sometimes to the general public. For a number of recent "Public Art Commissions on the MIT Campus", a brochure can be downloaded describing the artwork in detail.
In May 2011, the general public was invited to a weekend FAST (Festival of Art, Science, and Technology) tour of temporary art installations, as part of the MIT 150 celebration of the 150th anniversary of MIT's founding charter. The event was well-attended and popular, inviting the possibility of more such events in the future.
Although not part of the MIT campus, the nearby MBTA subway stop at Kendall Station is the site of the three-piece Kendall Band
Kendall Band
The Kendall Band is a three-part musical sculpture created between 1986 and 1988 by Paul Matisse, who is the grandson of French artist Henri Matisse and stepson of surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp. It is installed between the inbound and outbound tracks of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation...
. This artwork is an interactive sound sculpture which was designed and built by Paul Matisse
Paul Matisse
Paul Matisse is an artist and inventor. He is known especially for his public art installations, many of which are interactive. He is also inventor of the Kalliroscope....
, grandson of French artist Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, and stepson of surrealist artist Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
. The sound sculpture proved so popular that it was frequently worn out or broken, disappointing visitors. In 2010, it was adopted by the "Kendall Band Preservation Society", a group of MIT students and staff who have redesigned and rebuilt some of the broken mechanisms (with the approval of the artist) that made the sculpture operate.
Further reading
- "Massachusetts Institute of Technology : President's Report 1921". Mentions the original Rogers Building on Boylston Street in Boston. (497 Boylston Street when MIT had its original campus in Boston, before it moved to Cambridge in 1916. A plaque on the building serves as a commemoration.)
External links
- "Early Maps of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology", MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections
- A Brief Architectural History of MIT — written in 1988 by Katy Kline, then Director of the List Visual Arts Center