IS HARVARD’S ARCHITECTURE IN DECLINE?

IS HARVARD’S ARCHITECTURE IN DECLINE? This article in Harvard Magazine thinks that it is. The article laments the inability of Harvard to build new designs by Renzo Piano and Hans Hollein and describes the obstacles that are presented by neighborhood groups and the Cambridge Historical Commission. Apparently, neighbors are still bitter about Peabody Terrace designed by Josep Lluis Sert, where some of my graduate student friends lived forty years ago. My friends liked the efforts to make the building tenant-friendly. The neighbors hated that it was scaled too big for the neighborhood. I was struck that Robert A. M. Stern thinks that Harvard should adopt a neo-Georgian style because that is now Harvard’s brand. I was told years ago that the neo-Georgian buildings for the Harvard houses were unusual because they were the only Harvard buildings that were not built in a contemporary style (contemporary to the date of their construction).