Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology occupies a 168-acre (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 building campaigns characterized by, successively, neoclassical, modernist, brutalist, and deconstructivist styles which alternatively represent a commitment to utilitarian minimalism and embellished exuberance.42°21′33″N 71°05′36″W / 42.3591°N 71.0934°W
Campus organization[edit]
The geographical organization of the MIT campus is much easier to understand by referring to the MIT map, in online interactive,[1] or downloadable printable form.[2] There is also an MIT Accessibility Campus Map available for download, which is useful for mobility-impaired visitors.[3]
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 Grand Junction Railroad tracks paralleling Vassar Street are prefixed with N, while those northerly structures that are also West of Massachusetts Avenue are designated with NW. Two buildings at the far west end of campus are designated "WW15" and "WW25". The prefix NE is 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 and 00 for sub-basement.
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",[4] this system is somewhat logical, and allows members of the MIT community to quickly locate a room they may never have seen before. This numbering system contrasts with the building identification at other nearby colleges. For example, at Harvard University, 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.
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", also 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.[1][2]
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 impostors. The student-written MIT guide How To Get Around MIT (HowToGAMIT) devotes almost 4 pages of small print to details of MIT geography.[5]
Wartime and post-war buildings (1940–1960)[edit]
Alumni Pool (1940)[edit]
The Alumni Pool (Building 57) was designed by Lawrence B. Anderson (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.[31]
Landscaping[edit]
As MIT's riverfront site was a marshland filled-in by dredging from the bottom of the Charles, it was largely free from either natural flora or previous occupants. In 1892, the Cambridge Park Commission had commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted to lay out a picturesque driveway and park along the Charles River that would feature tree-lined promenades and a central mall. Bosworth's plan would integrate this Memorial Drive (Cambridge) into the campus by using courtyards enclosed and overlooked by the academic buildings.
Killian (née Great) Court, the ceremonial main entrance, was originally planned by Mabel Keyes Babcock '08 to be a French-style gravel-covered court centered on 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."[88] 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."[88]
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 Picasso, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder (La Grande Voile (The Big Sail)), 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.[89]
A self-guided walking tour map of major on-campus art is available from MIT information desks or online,[90] 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.[91]
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.[92]
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.[93]
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