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Loving the Unloved: A Brief Tour of Harvard’s Modern Architectural Gems

by Patrick Thrasher on May 1, 2008 in Culture

Go on. Say it. I won’t judge. You hate Peabody Terrace. You think it’s ugly. It’s okay - you’re not alone. I don’t think I’ve met a single person in Cambridge, excluding architects, who likes those buildings.

You probably don’t like Gund Hall either, which houses the Graduate School of Design. So much concrete! So angular!

I’m putting words into your mouth now, but you might not even like the Carpenter Center, that bizarre concrete building next to the Fogg. It’s unclear whether it helps or hurts to know that the center is the only building in the U.S. designed by Le Corbusier - the architect and theorist who popularized the flawed idea that societies could design their way out of problems.

With Harvard and MIT both accumulating centuries worth of great architecture, Cambridge is a designers’ heaven. At Harvard, this architecture often gets lumped into two broad categories: “Great!” - exemplified by the best of the Georgian and Federalist buildings in the Yard; and “Fugly,” such as Gund Hall, which is usally attached to buildings of poured concrete built after WWII.

I love some of those fugly buildings. Poured concrete is not inherently ugly, just as brick cannot make a building attractive by itself (See exhibit A: Taubman Center; or exhibits B through Z: all of HBS). In fact, poured concrete can be gorgeous. It picks up the detail of the plywood forms in which it was poured, individually texturing every square inch and making each a testament to the process of its construction. It responds to weather, changing color with the rain and the sun. Finally, its planar surfaces and neutral color emphasize the surrounding landscaping and provide a stage for shadows from nearby trees (and other buildings) to dance across through the course of the day. Concrete buildings often assert themselves through their size, but their surfaces invite visual interaction from their neighboring trees and buildings.

Here follow, then, some reasons to appreciate three very classic buildings built by our humble University. I limit the discussion to their exteriors, which we can all see. All are concrete, and are often accused of being ugly or inhuman, characterizations I hope to refute. If I can increase your appreciation of these buildings even a little bit, then - hey! - your life will be a little happier every time you walk by them.

Peabody Terrace

Graduate student housing complex. Architect of record (year completed): Josep Lluis Sert (1964)

Peabody Terrace. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
Peabody Terrace. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
The Peabody complex is flat-out wonderful. Though it houses hundreds of people, the variety of the building sizes blends the whole schmear into its great open space. Despite having three 22-story towers, it never feels overwhelming to the pedestrian; their height is more apparent and imposing from the far side of the Charles than it is from the complex’s courtyard. The series of balconies and shutters of the terraces reflect the dynamic use of the residents. Plants and chairs on the balcony, laundry over the railing, and the opening or closing of the shutters breathe changing life into the buildings’ face. And the series of lawns and open spaces woven among the buildings is a joy to walk through, especially these days. Try it.

Gund Hall

Graduate School of Design (GSD). Architect of Record (year completed): John Andrews (1972)

Gund Hall. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
Gund Hall. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
Gund Hall is the only Harvard building I can think of that engages the public. Its cantilevered fourth and fifth stories shelter passers-by on Quincy Street from the snow, and the corner above Quincy and Cambridge streets is a popular, if unconscious, public meeting space. The library has a full wall of windows facing the street at ground level: no other University building invites outsiders to watch the building while it is actually in use. And despite being a huge building - far bigger than Memorial Hall - the shifted stories and breaks in the exterior wall hide all that square footage (and give it rare, fantastic interior views).

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Architect of Record (year completed): Le Corbusier (1963)

Carpenter Center. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
Carpenter Center. Credit: Patrick Thrasher
My favorite building at Harvard right now, the Carpenter Center is high modernist architecture at its best. The mass of the building has an underlying logic, but it’s never repetitive, and every view of the building reveals something new. Its landscape has matured, and trees stretch their branches over its ramp and up towards the windows. I like the ramp most. Crossing from Quincy to Prescott streets, it takes you through the very center of the building and, as it rises from the street, meets the main gallery space. Then it descends again, through three stories. Take a stroll up the ramp and sneak a peak at what’s going on in the studios and gallery space on either side - especially at night. You’ll see what I mean.

Written by Patrick Thrasher · Filed Under Culture 

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