 The Cecil and Ida Green Building, also called the Green Building or Building 54, is an academic and research building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. 

Cecil and Ida Green Center for Earth Sciences

 Mark Pasnik discusses the Heroic Architecture at the Cecil and Ida Green Center for Earth Sciences created by I. M. Pei. 

 Mark Pasnik, architect and professor, discusses the Heroic Architecture Period in Boston, which occurred from 1960-1976. Concrete was the material of choice during this time. 

The Ralph Landau Building houses the Department of Chemical Engineering. The building is in the shape of a 30-60-90 triangle and was designed by famous architect and MIT Alumnus I.M. Pei.  

Ralph Landau Building

 I.M. Pei's imposing headquarters for the MIT Department of Chemistry, built in 1967 along with several other modernist buildings on campus, was the scene of many pioneering scientific developments in the last three decades of the 20th century. A comprehensive revitalization by Goody, Clancy &amp; Associates completed in 2003 has made the building ready for a new generation of challenges with state-of-the-art research labs, enhanced safety and environmental systems, and a flexible space format that will allow for reconfiguration as needs evolve. The renovation has given the building a more open plan and increased natural light in the labs. To preserve the integrity of the building the architects worked with Pei 's office on such alterations to the facade as the addition of energy-efficient windows. R&amp;D magazine named the project the "renovated laboratory of the year" in 2004. 

Camille Edouard Dreyfus Building

 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States is the Mother Church and administrative headquarters of the Christian Science Church, and is located in the Christian Science Plaza in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. 

Christian Science Center

 Ann Beha from Ann Beha Architects talks about the Christian Science Center. 

 Keith Morgan, the Professor of the history of Architecture at Boston University, discusses the historic context of the Christian Science Center in Boston. 

 Keith Morgan, professor of architecture at Boston University, discusses the architecture of the Christian Science Center. 

 The Wiesner building (Building E15) houses the MIT Media Lab and the List Visual Arts Center and is named in honor of former MIT president Jerome Wiesner and his wife Laya. It was designed by I.M. Pei. The building is very box-like, a motif that is consistently repeated in both the interior and exterior design evoking a sense of boxes packed within each other. The building is notable for the level of collaboration between the architect and artists. It stands apart from the surrounding neighborhood with its flat, gridded skin make of white, modular metal panels. The building's exterior was designed by Kenneth Noland is meant as a metaphor of technology through the grids of graph paper and number matrices while also quoting the corridor-like morphology of the rest of the MIT campus. Scott Burton, Alan Shields, and Richard Fleischner also collaborated extensively in the final design of the internal atria and external landscaping. 

Wiesner Building

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS "Huntington Avenue has long been a center of culture. The city calls it the Avenue of the Arts. But it`s been home to different kinds of culture at different times. We`re looking at the Museum of Fine Arts in the new photograph. Even before the museum arrived in Boston, this was a site for exhibitions. Pop culture existed in those days, too, and the land was used for rodeos and circuses. We can see the tents of one traveling circus in the older photo, where a sign (not visible) announces &ldquo;This Way to the Big Show&rdquo; &mdash; words that could well adorn a banner at the MFA today. Not much is known about those circuses. As for the museum, its building came along in 1909. That was an era when architects in both Europe and America loved to make big, pretentious public spaces. The architect was Guy Lowell, who was a cousin of Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell, the kind of family connection so helpful to aspiring young architects. For his cousin`s university, Guy Lowell also designed Lowell Hall, Emerson Hall, the Fox Club, Briggs Cage (an athletic facility), and the president's mansion (now Loeb House). Young American architects in those days flocked to Paris to drink wine and study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. They believed they had to go to Europe if they wanted to get any culture. (One of Guy Lowell's gifted contemporaries, Frank Lloyd Wright, was offered a free education at the school and turned it down, choosing to develop his own kind of architecture instead.) Lowell`s design for the museum is filled with motifs from classical Greek and Roman temple architecture, such as the central entry portico with its four huge Ionic columns. Everything is arranged symmetrically, in a style that`s usually called simply Beaux-Arts. The museum is meant to look like a palace, and it does. Faced with Deer Isle granite from Maine, it`s imposing, but it`s dull. Probably it is best remembered for the sentimental statue of a Native American on horseback, Appeal to the Great Spirit, added by sculptor Cyrus E. Dallin in 1913. Buildings are always changing. Lowell himself added wings to the MFA. So did other architects, including I. M. Pei. Since 1999, Britain`s Sir Norman Foster, a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, has been working on a proposal to further enlarge the vast museum. The museum wants to add gallery space and cover the open-air courtyards with glass roofs to make them usable year-round. At last count, phase one of Foster`s scheme was estimated to cost $180 million. A construction start is hoped for 2005." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Art and Soul of the City," Boston Globe, 15 August 2004

Hand colored photograph, ca. 1925. Leon Abdalian

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ann Beha from Ann Beha Architects talks about the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The JFK Presidential Library and Museum is dedicated to John F Kennedy and portrays the life and legacy of the nation's thirty-fifth president.  Additionally, the Library houses historical materials related to the political career of JFK.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum 

I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou. In 1935 he moved to the United States and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's architecture school, but quickly transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

I M Pei

SITES

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS

PLAYLISTS CURATED by I M Pei