The crumpled village look
by Frank Gehry in a confection called the Stata Center at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, a computer tech facility. A theme park
on angel dust, it has some demented charms from this angle. But
look a little closer on the street side. . . .
Note the tumbling razor blade effect over the entrance.
Getting inside is a close shave.
And then there's the building's attitude to the street.
The windows on the ground floor are the same as the windows on the
floors above. The life of the street has no special meaning as far
as the building is concerned. Note the landscaping beds intended
to compensate for this design failure. By the way, all of Vassar
Street (designated as MIT's new "main street") has the
same lifeless character. Check out another miserable stretch of
the street:
Blank walls, mingy industrial sash windows, feeble
string courses. Buildings with no generosity to the public realm.
Believe it or not, MIT actually has a pretty big school of architecture
and urban design. What do they do there?
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