B B Chemical Company | |
Location | 784/780 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, Massachusetts |
---|---|
Coordinates | 42°21′35″N71°06′55″W / 42.35972°N 71.11528°W |
Built | 1937 |
Architect | Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott |
Architectural style | Streamline Moderne |
MPS | Cambridge MRA |
NRHP reference No. | 82001918 [1] |
Added to NRHP | April 13, 1982 |
The B B Chemical Company is an historic office and industrial building at 784 Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was built in 1937 for the Boston Blacking Company, an adhesive manufacturer whose most famous brand name was Bostik, to a design by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott, and is a prominent local example of Streamline Moderne architecture. From 1979 to 1996, it served as the headquarters of the Polaroid Corporation. [2] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 under the incorrect name "B and B Chemical Company". [1] It is now owned by The Bulfinch Companies of Needham, Massachusetts. [3]
The former B B Chemical Company building is located in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge, on the east side of Memorial Drive between River Street and Pleasant Street Extension. It is a basically rectangular structure, with a four-story central section flanked by three-storey wings. It has a frame of steel and concrete, and is mainly faced in buff brick. The central section is recessed from the wings, but a projecting cornice on the wings extends over the recess area to provide a curved canopy over the entrance. The central part of the center section is even taller, with a projecting rounded window bay topped by a clock face. The wings are symmetrical, with the ground floor composed mainly of glass blocks interspersed with regularly spaced horizontal windows. The upper floors are defined by long bands of horizontal windows. [4]
The building was designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott and built in 1937 for the B B Chemical Company, a subsidiary of the United Shoe Machinery Corporation since 1929. In 1946, it described itself as supplying "adhesives and related compounds for the shoe leather, aircraft, rubber clothing and shipbuilding industries". [5] The facility, which include a more simply designed second building behind this one, produced adhesives used in the shoe manufacturing process at other plants. It served as the headquarters for the Polaroid Corporation starting in 1979. [4] It is now owned by The Bulfinch Companies, [6] and is occupied by Harvard University's Information Technology group [7] (HUIT). [8]
Polaroid Corporation was an American company best known for its instant film and cameras, which now survives as a brand for consumer electronics. The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit the use of his Polaroid polarizing polymer. Land and Polaroid created the first instant camera, the Land Camera, in 1948.
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Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture".
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Charles Allerton Coolidge (1858–1936) was an American architect best known as a partner in the architecture firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston and Chicago, successors to the firm of architect Henry Hobson Richardson and one of the best-known architecture firms in the United States. Coolidge was also senior partner in that firm's successors, Coolidge & Shattuck and Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch & Abbott of Boston and Coolidge & Hodgdon of Chicago.
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Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry Hobson Richardson.
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Shepley Bulfinch is an international architecture, planning, and interior design firm with offices in Boston, Hartford, Houston, and Phoenix. It is one of the oldest architecture firms in continuous practice in the United States, and was recognized by the American Institute of Architects with its highest honor, the AIA Architecture Firm Award, in 1973.
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Memorial Hall Library is the public library of Andover, Massachusetts. The building was built with Italianate styling in 1873 to a design by J. F. Eaton, a longtime associate of the Boston architect Gridley J. F. Bryant. Funding was provided by a number of leading local businessmen, and construction was by the firm of Abbott & Jenkins. It was designed to house the town library, which it still does, and to act as a memorial to the town's Civil War soldiers. It was renovated in the 1920s under the direction of architects Coolidge & Carlson, at which time it acquired its Colonial Revival details. Small additions were completed in 1961 and 1968. In 1988 a large addition, which doubled the size of the building, was completed. This was designed by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott.
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George Foster Shepley was an American architect. He was the senior partner in the firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston and Chicago, the successor to the firm of architect Henry Hobson Richardson.
Charles Hercules Rutan was an American architect best known as a partner in the firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston and Chicago, successors to the firm of architect Henry Hobson Richardson.
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