I began my trip to the Big Walk by driving to my office in Technology Square, Cambridge. (No sense paying for a parking space at Alewife when I've already got one at the office!) From Tech Sq. we have an excellent of MIT's latest architectural nightmare, the $300 million, Frank Gehry-designed Ray and Maria Stata Center. When complete in early 2004, the building will house MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (my employer), Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. (L&P lost its original home, building 20, which was a WW2 temporary building located on this site for more than fifty years.) Those of us who end up living there will probably be calling it “building 32” in deference to MIT's long-standing tradition.
The Stata Center consists of a broad but short “warehouse” section with two nine-storey towers spiking out on either end. The tower seen here (below the tower crane and adjacent to the existing building 34/36/38 complex which houses the EECS department and the Research Laboratory of Electronics) is named after Alexander Dreyfoos, and will house everyone except LCS.
The cross street in the near midground is Main St. The Stata Center is actually located on Vassar St., which currently has a rather industrial air to it, but plans are underway for its tarting-up as well.
Copyright 2002, Garrett A. Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2002-08-25.