The Harvard University Science Center is Harvard University's main classroom and laboratory building for undergraduate science and mathematics, in addition to housing numerous other facilities and services. Located just north of Harvard Yard, the Science Center was built in 1972 [1] and opened in 1973 [2] [3] after a design by Josep Lluís Sert, who was then dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. [4]
Harvard had been interested in building an undergraduate science center in the 1950s and 1960s. However, in the midst of an economic decline, funding could not be found. No concrete plans were made until in 1968, Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid "Land" camera, made a $12.5 million donation to construct a science center specifically for undergraduates. [5] [6]
Opponents of the plan feared that insufficient monies would be found to complete the project, and that the building's maintenance costs would be unreasonably high. [6] The Biology Department also protested the move of its undergraduate-instruction facilities far from the department's main quarters. Professor George Wald argued that this would degrade the quality of instruction. There was also dissatisfaction with cancellation of plans at that time for a new biochemistry building. [7]
The plan called for demolition of Lawrence Hall, a laboratory and a living space built in 1848. By the time of the scheduled demolition, a commune of students and "street people" calling themselves the "Free University" had taken residence in the unused building. [8] [9] The controversy was rendered moot when fire gutted the building a month later in May 1970. [10] [11]
As part of the project, in 1966–68 the portion of Cambridge Street running along the north edge of Harvard Yard was depressed into a 4-lane motor vehicle underpass, thus allowing unhindered pedestrian movement between the Yard and Harvard facilities to the north, including the new Science Center. Architectural historian Bainbridge Bunting wrote that this was the "most important improvement in Cambridge since the construction of [what would later be called] Memorial Drive in the 1890s". [1]
Harvard commissioned architects Sert, Jackson and Associates to design and build the facility. Josep Lluis Sert, who had become Dean of the Harvard School of Design in 1953, had designed a number of other Harvard buildings, including Peabody Terrace, Holyoke Center (now the Smith Campus Center), and the Harvard Divinity School's Center for the Study of World Religions. These buildings were part of a modernist movement that sought to break away from the Georgian and related styles used at Harvard for hundreds of years. Thus, the Science Center is largely steel and concrete, with plentiful fenestration admitting natural light. [4] [7] Construction lasted from 1970 to 1972. [7]
From 2001 to 2004 a $22 million, 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) renovation created space for the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and expanded other facilities. [5] [12] [13] A room-sized historic electromechanical computer built in 1944, the Harvard Mark I, was displayed on the ground floor next to the central stairwell in the main lobby of the building (it has since been moved to the Science and Engineering Complex (SEC) in Allston, Massachusetts). [14]
The Science Center comprises nine stories, plus a basement and observatory floor. It houses the History of Science, the Mathematics, and the Statistics Departments. Other facilities include: [15]
Secreted beneath the Science Center itself and its courtyard (and largely unknown those who work and study at Harvard) is a "gargantuan" chilled water plant, "a magnificent Piranesi-like interior with the volume of Boston's Symphony Hall" [1] providing cooling to many Harvard buildings from the Science Center northward. [18] The building itself was first opened around the time of the 1973 oil crisis, and was plagued with huge energy costs, temperature control problems, and roof leaks for decades. [19] [20]
The plaza between the Science Center and Harvard Yard, created by the depression of Cambridge Street and Broadway into a large tunnel, is used at various times for food trucks, roller skating, ice skating, and other activities such as markets and concerts. Tents are erected for special events such as Commencement. [21] [22] [23] The Tanner Fountain, a sculptural installation of large boulders and landscaping, operates during warm weather.
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard College.
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard College is Harvard University's traditional undergraduate program, offering AB and SB degrees. It is highly selective, with fewer than four percent of applicants being offered admission as of 2022.
The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building designed primarily by Le Corbusier in the United States—he contributed to the design of the United Nations Secretariat Building—and one of only two in the Americas. Le Corbusier designed it with the collaboration of Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente at his 35 rue de Sèvres studio; the on-site preparation of the construction plans was handled by the office of Josep Lluís Sert, then dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He had formerly worked in Le Corbusier's atelier and had been instrumental in winning him the commission. The building was completed in 1962.
Josep Lluís Sert i López was a Catalan architect and city planner established in the USA after 1939.
The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is the largest of the ten faculties that constitute Harvard University.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, urban design, real estate, design engineering, and design studies.
Cabot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. Cabot House derives from the merger in 1970 of Radcliffe College's South and East House, which took the name South House, until the name was changed and the House reincorporated in 1984 to honor Harvard benefactors Thomas Cabot and Virginia Cabot. The house is composed of six buildings surrounding Radcliffe Quadrangle; in order of construction, they are Bertram Hall (1901), Eliot Hall (1906), Whitman Hall (1911), Barnard Hall (1912), Briggs Hall (1923), and Cabot Hall (1937). All six of these structures were originally women-only Radcliffe College dormitories until they were integrated in 1970. Along with Currier House and Pforzheimer House, Cabot is part of the Radcliffe Quad.
Memorial Hall, immediately north of Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an imposing High Victorian Gothic building honoring Harvard men's sacrifices in defense of the Union during the American Civil War—"a symbol of Boston's commitment to the Unionist cause and the abolitionist movement in America."
Sarah M. Whiting is an American architect, critic, and academic administrator. Whiting is currently Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design, in addition to being a founding partner of WW Architecture, along with her husband, Ron Witte. She previously served as Dean and William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture at Rice School of Architecture. In addition to her work as an academic administrator, Whiting is most commonly identified as an intellectual figure within the field of architecture's "post-critical" turn in the early 2000s.
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Dudley Community is an alternative to Harvard College's 12 Houses. The Dudley Community serves nonresident undergraduate students, visiting undergraduate students, and undergraduates living in the Dudley Co-op. In 2019, the Dudley Community was formed, reflecting the administrative split between the undergraduate and graduate programs that were under Dudley House since 1991. Affiliated undergraduates have access to Dudley Community advisers, programs, intramural athletics, and organized social events. Dudley Community administrative offices are currently housed in two suites in 10 DeWolfe St in Cambridge after moving from Lehman Hall. Lehman Hall now houses the student center for the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Kyu Sung Woo is a South Korean architect and principal of the architectural design firm, Kyu Sung Woo Architects, Inc. The firm's projects include many built and proposed works in the United States and South Korea.
Eduard Franz Sekler was an architectural historian and Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Art Emeritus and professor of architecture emeritus at Harvard University.
Harvard Hall is a Harvard University classroom building in Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard University's Smith Campus Center is a Brutalist administrative and service building located at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, directly opposite the Wadsworth Gate to Harvard Yard. It houses Harvard administrative offices, an infirmary of the University Health Services, and a retail/restaurant arcade.
Peabody Terrace, on the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a Harvard University housing complex primarily serving graduate students, particularly married students and their families. Designed in the brutalist style and constructed in 1964, its three-story perimeter grows to five and seven stories within, with three interior 22-story towers.
Harvard University's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI), established 1948, is "one of the three largest university collections of its kind in the world". Waywiser, the online catalog of the collection, lists over 60% of the collection's 20,000 objects as of 2014. The collection was originally curated by Mr. David P Wheatland in his office to prevent obsolete equipment from being cannibalized for its component parts and materials.
Luis Lacasa Navarro was a Spanish architect. His work in Spain and Paris before and during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was rationalist and functional. He is best known as co-designer of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition, a work designed to showcase the modern legitimacy of the embattled Spanish Republic. After the war he went into exile in the Soviet Union.
Mirko Basaldella was an Italian sculptor and painter.
Town Planning Associates was a design firm in New York City, active between 1942 and 1959, which included Paul Lester Wiener, Paul Schulz, Josep Lluis Sert. The firm produced urban design and city planning in various new or existing South American cities including Bogotá, Chimbote in Peru, and Havana. Sert's master plan for Havana, Havana Plan Piloto, was notable for its integration of natural landscape into new urban and existing building schemes. Town Planning Associates made prominent use of patios and other aspects of Mediterranean architecture adapted to South and Central America. They employed modernist principles of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and the Athens Charter. The charter got its name from the location of the fourth CIAM conference in 1933, which, due to the deteriorating political situation in Russia, took place on the SS Patris II bound for Athens from Marseilles. This conference was documented in a film commissioned by Sigfried Giedion and made by his friend László Moholy-Nagy "Architects' Congress." The Charter had a significant impact on urban planning after World War II and, through Josep Lluis Sert and Paul Lester Wiener, especially on the proposed modernization of Havana.
