Profile

Cecil and Ida Green Center for Earth Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Completed 1964

Lead Designer: I. M. Pei

Laboratories and classrooms for the Department of Geology, Geophysics and Meteorology
 

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This commission involved not only the Earth Sciences Building, but also the quadrangle on which it stands. East of the original campus, the site is situated on the main axis along which MIT expanded into a light industry district. Over a decade, the firm executed three linked science buildings around McDermott Court — all buff-colored concrete to match the limestone campus, all scaled to neighboring buildings, and all designed to emphasize the ordered sequence of open spaces and enclosing structures that characterize MIT's campus tradition. (The firm executed a fourth building at MIT in 1984.)

The 21-story Earth Sciences Center, MIT's first high-rise, is the most visible part of the expansion program. Although a sharp break with low-rise development, it complements the restrained classicism of the existing campus while continuing MIT's tradition of scientific experimentation: the 277-foot-high tower was a unique experiment in poured-in-place architectural concrete high-rise construction. The load-bearing walls permit column-free interiors (48' x 93') for maximum flexibility in accommodating research in geology, geophysics, geochemistry, oceanography and meteorology. The roof of the building serves as a meteorological laboratory.

Major Components

Glazed lobby, double height lecture hall, library, 16 floors classrooms / laboratories / seminar rooms / support, rooftop meteorological laboratory, monumental sculpture

Awards

I. M. Pei & Associates services

Complete Architectural Services; Interior Design of public spaces including library and lecture hall

Structural

Severud-Elstad-Krueger Associates, New York, NY

Mechanical / Electrical

Syska and Hennessy, New York, NY

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