The appearance of where I learn is not something I find myself pondering often. As long as the place is not too messy and has somewhere comfortable to work I'm happy. The MIT campus, however, seems to be a haven for fascinating architecture built decades apart and a treasure trove of thought-provoking artwork that seems to catch you by surprise upon turning any corner. With all this new found inspiration surrounding me on a daily basis, it is worth considering what the point of it all is.
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Having been built in 1916 the Great Dome is the Queen's Tower equivalent of the MIT Campus. On weekends and weekdays alike you'll see floods of tourists and prospective students making their way up the stairs of the Rodgers building while being simultaneously dwarfed by gargantuan decorative columns, the floods of tourists are justified. Upon entering you're awestruck with an intricately designed ceiling with words engraved in gold on the walls. The show for tourists stops in the initial entrance and then continues to be a regular institution once you make your way to the corridors, but there is still a gorgeous 70's character about the place with a green and pink colour scheme. The majority of the buildings are what you would expect for a place built up between 1900's and present day, with many examples of classic 60's concrete looking architecture and surprisingly gorgeous buildings from the '50s. For example, the MIT Chapel smashes the expectations of what a church is meant to look like. A short cylindrical building made entirely of brick makes it a plain curiosity on the outside with the inside covered in gorgeous brickwork that makes patterns on the walls and a metallic art display (I assume representing the Holy Spirit) hanging down at the front of the church behind the altar. I personally got very lucky with the building I work in, a place called the Strata Centre (strangely not the centre for Maths here) which was built in 2004. Wacky is one word to describe the building, being coloured orange, yellow and silver with a non-conventional shape and interior design ''created to ensure collaboration''.I say I am lucky as the Strata centre is not only a curiosity to look at but a hub for people on campus to eat and relax around a big patch of grass. This piece of grass hosts a handful of pieces of artwork either commissioned or donated, all quite abstract to reflect the strangeness of the building they stand near.
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| The Strata Centre |
It seems clear that with such buildings and artwork, MIT has been creating its landmarks in the last hundred years similar to the ones London has had for five hundred. MIT has been incredibly successful in promoting itself as a tourist destination with the Strata centre appearing in my tourist handbook of Boston and the existence of daily walking tours for people who don't even want to be studying here. However, the true purpose of such design may lie in the quote scribed on the entrance to the Rodgers building:
" (Massachusetts Institue of Technology was) established for the advancement of science and its application to industry and the arts." The dome is grand, strong and beautiful but would it stand without an engineers calculations? A piece of art outside the lift I use every day is a screen that reflects its observer but uses AI to alter reality with countless animations, would this exist without a talented programmer? Perhaps the point is to smash the stereotype of science being dull by using art to reflect the most beautiful parts of biology, physics, information technology and maths. Maybe again, I'm wrong. On the 18th April 2013, Officer Sean Collier a member of the MIT police was killed in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing and MIT honoured him with art. The Collier memorial was built to represent a giant hand outstretching, made out of solid blocks of granite that seem to almost defy gravity. Another memorial for Officer Collier is a hanging mobile of thousands of paper cranes made by members of the MIT and Boston community in remembrance. My point is, none of these buildings cost anything to enter and many of the art instalments are outside for everyone to enjoy and are an ingenious way to connect the university to the local community.
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| Crane Memorial for Officer Collier |
When I return to Imperial I probably won't think that the princes' gardens are missing a 9ft structure representing the way the Riemann Zeta function relates to the primes, but while I'm here I'll take the time to enjoy and learn from some brilliant design.
