Friday, November 13, 2009

No Love for MIT's Campus

Noted author and urbanist James Howard Kunstler has some harsh words in his podcast this week about MIT, saying the campus "has got to be the ugliest academic neighborhood in America."

He goes on: "Is it because science-oriented people or engineer types have no interest whatsoever in in their surroundings?" he wonders. "You couldn't have designed an uglier campus if you'd invited the devil to run the design team. Everything they've done lately... even these new Frank Gehry buildings and Steven Holl buildings, you know, the "starchitect" buildings, have done nothing to make it any better."

While I think he gives no credit at all to the beautiful Beaux Arts Bosworth campus, the conversation has an interesting take on the race betweem elite institutions to create "wacky buildings."

A more substantive discussion follows about the design issues with the Rose Kennedy Greenway and why Boston is one of the "healthiest cities in America."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nope, Harvard is uglier!