Imperial Harvard

March 2

One of the most interesting though little noted architectural sculptures adorning the landscapes of Allston, Harvard and the Charles River Basin is this one, atop the pylon that marks the Cambridge approach to the Anderson Bridge. What the sculpture depicts is an empty suit of Roman armor, surmounted by a rather fierce-looking eagle. The composition strongly evokes the demise of the armor's wearer. The memorial plaque exhorts Harvard's students, who must pass it en route to the athletic facilities, to reflect on their patriotic obligations (and perhaps see their training in the sports arena as preparation for that higher-stakes engagement).

The bridge is often mistakenly identified with the name of its donor, Larz Anderson, though it really commemorates his father, Nicholas Longworth Anderson. Anderson senior achieved glory while still in his 20's as a private, then colonel, and finally lieutenant general in the Union army, where he directed a number of important campaigns. The rather bleak representation contrasts with his military success and subsequently benign life managing the family fortune, a life that ended not on the battlefield but in belle-epoque Paris. Yet the stern lesson of sacrifice and duty endures in his name.

Erected in 1913, the bridge is a small but integral feature of what architectural historians call 'Imperial Harvard,' a stylistic term that describes quite a few structures built on the campus between the Civil War and the Great War (and a little after). The preeminent instance of Imperial Harvard  is Widener Library, with its massive columns and forbidding scale. Emerson Hall to its east captures something of the same spirit, as does Langdell Hall at the Law School, and perhaps the enormous pilasters of Lehmann Hall that loom over Harvard Square from within the Yard. In the same spirit is the rather ghastly Sargent mural inside Widener, depicting fresh-faced doughboys rescuing the damsel France from the clutches of diabolical Teutons. In all this confident, even triumphalist iconography we can read the pride of a university that under President Eliot's tutelage had become one of the world's finest, and a nation that had come to dominate international affairs. The sacrifice implied by that empty suit of armor yielded a handsome return. 

  

What interests me in all this is not just antiquarian curiosity but the lessons one might bring to bear on the future. Architectural styles change, as do the institutional identities often codified in those styles. In its next great building phase, instituted by Eliot's successor A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard created the river houses in the friendlier and more accessible neo-Georgian style that has come to characterize the university's visual identity in our day. Despite the locked gates I mentioned in an earlier post, those houses in their design suggest community, conviviality, shared purpose. Lowell's idea in building them was to democratize residential life for undergraduates, who had stratified by family wealth into an array of luxury apartments and exclusive clubs on the one hand and spartan dorms and rooming houses on the other. Like their monastic antecedents, the houses were intended to level such distinctions, as if in preparation for the more democratic post-WWII era.

So what will Harvard's institutional identity come to be in our new century, and how will that be stylistically expressed? Here's a dark view, suggested to me just this morning in the dispute that has publicly surfaced among Harvard's biological scientists. Pure knowledge, some claim, is being displaced by applied technologies, foundational research giving way to enterprise (and patent income). In this spirit a future bridge might be named for its sponsor and emblazoned, not with an icon of civic virtue, but a corporate logo. This would effectively caricature the sort of 21st century university Larry Summers seemed to have in mind when he embarked on his Allston adventure.

Now Summers is gone--kicked upstairs so to speak--and President Faust has her chance to stamp a new identity on the university. Perhaps that identity will be characterized by the sensitivity and openness to dialog that are said to be her strengths. Perhaps that new identity will have little to do with Allston--recent news stories would support this view--though there remains the awkward question of those 350 acres of Allston land Harvard owns. But here's a more cheerful possibility. Maybe the new Harvard will grow into its Allston holdings after all. Maybe it will build on the green design of its first new project, and follow through with its promise to make a permeable, welcoming, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly campus. Perhaps it will follow up its tentative steps to engage with the local community, to be a presence in its schools and a resource for its residents. Leaving behind its centuries of parochial inwardness, setting aside the pretensions of imperial ascendancy, perhaps the next incarnation of Harvard will be one of real community, not the self-contained communities of the river houses but the interwoven and sustainable community it could form with its neighbors and its adjacent cities. Such a conception of a great university would be an innovation worthy of a new century. 

Allston skyline (1): the temple of Biotechnology

6 February

We don't have much of a skyline in Allston, and for the most part that's fine with us. The main exceptions occur along the Charles River, where the spacious perspective calls for large, even dramatic buildings, that would be out of scale anywhere else in the neighborhood. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of the Genzyme manufacturing plant, an outsized and eccentric structure that asserts itself unashamedly in the foreground of the riverscape.

The building's design is said to owe much to Genzyme's eminent CEO, Henri Termeer, an architecture buff who wanted it to be compatible with the red-brick Harvard architecture it adjoins along the river. But a quick glance tells you that, red brick aside, the Genzyme factory has little in common with its Harvard neighbors. It has more to do with another red-brick neighbor, the power plant on the Cambridge side, particularly as the industrial uses of the Genzyme building show clearly through its oversized and deceptively contoured windows. But really the Genzyme plant looks like none of its neighbor structures, or anything else I've ever seen, except perhaps ... yes, a Gothic cathedral! Doesn't it? With its lofty nave-like shape, its clerestory windows, its side gables that suggest chapels, transepts, or even flying buttresses? Not a literal cathedral--the components are too oddly rearranged, and who ever heard of a red-brick cathedral? And not a complete one: it lacks a section, the apse, with sanctuary and apsidial chapels on the east end. But wait. All that scaffolding and those cranes working on the east side, are they going to complete the 'cathedral' structure at last? It's hard to tell right now, but from the designs I saw when the new project was launched, I think they might.

When the original plant opened, Mr. Termeer told reviewer Robert Campbell that he hoped the new building would be a "symbol of biotechnology," humankind's next great adventure. As it happened, Campbell wasn't buying, and instead he saw the architectural grandeur as merely mystifying. Campbell complained that the building's industrial uses are disguised by its elegant envelope, but Termeer's idea was just the opposite: to point to the ennobling possibilities in the new industry. Thousands of sufferers from Gaucher's disease will go on living because of work done in the Genzyme plant, just as pilgrims visited the original cathedrals in search of miraculous cures. 

Now that Harvard owns all the rest of that tract behind the Genzyme building--owns the building itself, with a long-term lease--there is every chance that that bold symbolic statement will come to mean much more than even the far-sighted Mr. Termeer might have predicted. Imagine stem-cell research going ahead full-speed just down the road in Stefan Behnisch's futuristically green laboratory buildings. Imagine that the rest of Harvard's new Science Complex is lit up with similar researches in biotechnology and the other sciences of our new century. The almost theological claims of the Genzymne plant's architecture--which Campbell and others called into question at the time--could be fulfilled in the new technological precincts of Harvard's Allston campus, a summum of enlightened scientific culture.  

Or not. Maybe prudence will triumph over vision, and Harvard will choose to hold on to its billions in endowment dollars, rather than invest them in fulfilling its campus idea. Maybe Termeer's monument will remain a lonely outpost of what could be. The great cathedrals took centuries to build, and the first generations never saw the fruits of their labors. But I take hope from the boldness of the Genzyme building, and look forward to the time when it stands for and points toward a renewed Allston.

What Does Allston Want?

4 February

It's been two months since the results of Allston's Needs Assessment Survey were tabulated and presented to the community. In that time Harvard has apparently lost a ton of money and made public noises reassessing its commitment to expand into Allston, while the City and the BRA have been notably silent on all aspects of Allston's future development. Meanwhile the rest of us go on living here, wondering what our city government and our Large Neighbor to the North have in store for us. Let's not forget, though--even if others might prefer to--that a year ago we were promised something grand, what Harvard's lawyers called a "major transformational project," toward which the needs assessment was a first step.  This promise was part of the community benefits agreement signed by Harvard and the City as part of the approval for the Science Complex--mitigation, that is, for the gigantic construction project unfolding on Western Ave. Whatever else Harvard builds or doesn't build in Allston, we have a right to expect that 'transformational project' to move forward.

So what will it be?  

Sorting through the mass of data collected by the survey, one theme clearly emerges: local folks want Harvard to enhance educational opportunities in our neighborhood. Much of the focus is on helping kids do well in school and prepare for college: tutoring, summer opportunities, counseling and mentoring all place high on the list of priorities. Looking more closely, you can se that other particular needs emerge: immigrants (a third of our community) want more ESL classes, seniors are looking for adult education and other services. Logically enough, people look to Harvard for a share in its educational bounty--and indeed the educational portal is already a small step in this direction.

But what about other needs? Some are routine: people want potholes filled, sidewalks repaired, snow shoveled. Maybe Harvard can help with these things, or maybe the city could do its job better. Large support is voiced for better water quality in the Charles River, though I believe this may exceed the scope even of Harvard. Better access to the river, on the other hand, is something Harvard really could help with, as it owns quite a lot of the adjacent land. 

All these wonderful thoughts about improving our neighborhood with Harvard's help soon lead to that other large process, the Community-Wide Plan (CWP) undertaken by the city last year as a counterpart to Harvard's campus planning. The CWP hasn't made a lot of progress, but in some ways the Needs Assessment offers good advice for how that CWP, designed by the BRA and supported by Harvard, could lead to substantial, timely, and essential improvements in our quality of life. Here are a few suggestions:

• All those educational programs need not only dedicated funding but a home more substantial than the temporary portal structure. A Community Center would be truly transformative for our neighborhood just as the Honan Library was a few years ago.
• Such a Community Center needs to be sited and planned for in the CWP process right now, so as to serve as a linch pin for other community planning. The whole point of the CWP is to take a larger view of our community's development.
• Placed anywhere along Western Ave., the Community Center will enliven its surroundings with foot traffic and activity, and thus serve a major goal of the CWP and its parent plan the Strategic Framework: making Western Ave. into a distinguished 'boulevard' or 'main street.'
• What makes the most sense to me, though, would be a site in between the two centers of activity at Barry's Corner and Brighton Mills, adding animation to that whole half-mile stretch. This points to Smith Field, that vast and greatly underused neighborhood asset: why not build the Community Center within or next to Smith Field, as part of a larger redesign to make the park more street-accessible and lively?
• The Community Center/Smith Field idea points to another need highlighted by the survey: for better indoor and outdoor recreational facilities, sports programs, even a gym and pool. Imagine the synergy in a Center where kids (and adults) could go for educational enrichment and counseling, and also play sports all year round? Now the 'transformational' possibilities are hugely expanded, and we would have one of the most desirable community assets imaginable.
  

   There is much more that needs to be incorporated into the CWP, more to negotiate with Harvard, more to say about their campus planning. But the time to move on the Community Center is NOW, while the Science Complex is under construction, the needs assessment is fresh in our minds, and before Harvard 'forgets' its promise to our neighborhood. Siting and preparing to build such a Center will not only start to transform the neighborhood, but it could give new life to a stagnating CWP, and remind us all of the visionary possibilities we imagined years ago when this whole process began. 

 

the river houses and the Great Depression

2 January

The view of Harvard from Allston is above all a view of the river houses. These elegantly detailed Georgian-revival piles, with their pleasing rhythm of courtyards and gates, proclaim all that is collegiate in Harvard's identity, while their names--Eliot and Winthrop, Leverett, Lowell, Quincy, Dunster, Mather--read like an honor roll of Harvard's Anglo-American forbears. 

The river houses are lavishly praised  by historian Douglas Shand-Tucci as the "masterwork" of the famous Harvard architect Charles Coolidge. Among other virtues Tucci notes their orientation, "river facing," a quality we on the other side of the river would find especially pleasing, if only it were true. That is, the architect may well have intended the hospitable message of the open-sided courtyard fronting on the river, but in my memory the gates have always been resolutely locked. To the river-walker the river houses pose a formidable barrier, and their spear-tipped gates say 'Private property--no entrance.'

It is interesting to recall that these houses were built in the first years of the Great Depression, 1930-31. Funding came from a single donor, whose gift of $11.5 million paid for the construction. That's million, not billion--just a few weeks' worth of compensation for Harvard's high-flying fund managers in recent years as they embroiled the university's endowment in hedge funds and credit default swaps. Now, with losses accumulating and 'only' $28 billion or so left in its endowment the university has started to voice doubts whether it has the funds to carry on with its Allston projects. Such was not the thinking of President Lowell in the bottomed-out market days of 1930: he was determined to move ahead with the collegiate vision embodied in the houses, and he turned the available cash donation into brick-and-mortar (and construction jobs) in just a few years. Most would agree that Harvard became a more distinguished institution as a result. 

So as I see it the river houses suggest two great challenges for Harvard in the present time. Can the university, with its still-vast resources, go forward with its 21st-century vision, despite the unfavorable market conditions that may be with us for some time? Does Harvard still have that much courage of its convictions? And can it understand its presence and mission in such as way that this time it really will open its courtyards to the public sphere? Will the hospitable possibilities of the river houses be realized in the new Allston campus?

crèche

1 January 2009

I just set up my crèche. Usually it goes up with the tree, but holiday travel and bustle pushed it back till now. But it's OK--we still have five days till Epiphany, or Three Kings' Day, when you really need a crèche. Five days for the shepherd to complete his idolatry and withdraw with his sheep, while the Wise Men wend their way toward stable and star. Five days to rearrange the manger scene again and again--I think some family member is changing it when I'm not looking--for maximum effect. 

As you can see, our set in a simple, minimal one, just seven human figures, four animals, and a rickety stable with star attached. The kings bear tokens of their royal gifts, the shepherd carries a lamb. The Holy Parents make a protective pair--Mary by her posture, Joseph with his staff--while the Bambino radiates out from his straw. All is as it should be, every figure in its place, flickering faintly in the light of the votive candle I have placed there. If you look closely at the figures, you see that the carver has given great expressiveness to their tiny features. They were carved by hand in olive wood in Palestine, in Bethlehem, on the West Bank.

But suddenly, as I recall this fact, I am struck by how illusory it seems, the peaceful scene represented by my crèche. How perfect it is, the continuity from year to year as the twelve days of Christmas unfold and turn into Epiphany. How perfectly the Kings arrive, right on schedule. How satisfying this whole story of babies in mangers, attended by shepherds, angels, and kings. How unlike the chaos and hatred and death that characterize the place we call the Holy Land this festival season. How poorly my crèche suggests the agony of Gaza. Or put another way, how Gaza raises its voice in witness against the complacency of my crèche, of our holiday season. How far we have wandered from the peaceable vision of the prophets, of the gospel storyteller, of the carver of my crèche. 

crowded furniture

29 December

We live in a small house, an Allston house, so that every late-December a little drama arises around fitting in the tree. I was brought up to resist trimming the tree until a day or two before Christmas, so the question usually erupts on the 22nd or 23rd: where do we put it? The answer involves moving chairs and tables around, so that our normally crowded double parlor gets even more so, and you have to pick your way from room to room. Disused wrapping paper and seasonal catalogs only make things worse.

The tree itself, all dressed up in lights and ornaments, is some compensation for the added clutter, as are the colored lights on the outside windows and the delicacies that appear on the table. But apart from those trade-offs  I find that I like the crowded furniture for its own sake. That's why we have so much of it: three rockers and a couple sofas, miscellaneous chairs and end tables of many shapes and sizes, garnered from elderly relatives and sidewalks and god-knows-where. And lamps, standing and table, old and new. To be frank, our downstairs already looks like a second-hand furniture warehouse, and when you add in an eight-foot pine, the consequences are ... cozy.

My temporary apartment in Montparnasse was an even smaller space, just one room and an alcove, 180 square feet at best. But the effect was just the opposite: clean and spare, with only the most essential furniture and blank white walls. While my landlady's quite antithetical taste in décor gave me--I'll admit it--a certain psychic relief, it is equally true that I spent a lot of time imagining how, if I owned my own apartment in Paris, I would fill it up with the most wonderful furniture.  I thought this while browsing the second-hand furniture market along the Boulevard de Reuilly on a Saturday, when dealers set out cherished collections of old chairs or dining sets, even oil paintings and old silver, a whole history of former apartments laid out in booths along the sidewalk. Or window-shopping the lower Rue Jacob, a fancier antique district, I would imagine the most ornate second-empire interiors for myself, with gilded statues and tasseled lamps. You would have trouble just getting from one side to the other of my imaginary Parisian studio, but it would please your eye, in a homey sort of way, as you did so.

This attachment to crowded spaces isn't limited to interiors; in fact, it's what I like about the streets themselves of Paris or New York or other great cities. In Paris I loved how the storefronts ran elbow-to-elbow along many of the streets, how the cafés spilled out onto the sidewalks and the markets even took over the streets at times. I liked how close everything was, how much was crowded into a small space. These virtues of crowdedness and clutter are not exactly native to us Americans, though I very much appreciate this effect in parts of Boston like the North End, the newly-named Ladder District, or even Harvard Square. There is something warm about a crowded sidewalk, just as there is about our holiday clutter.

I labor to accept the reality that North Allston will never be Paris, that it's not really a city district at all but an old suburb without even a town center. Still we don't have to feel that we are condemned forever to lack urban clutter. With a little ingenuity and the resources of a wealthy developer Barry's Corner and Brighton Mills and the stretch of Western avenue in between could give us a little swatch of crowded cityscape--just enough to feel a part of a city--without compromising our tree-shaded, miniaturized suburban residential streets. With some help from Harvard and the City of Boston we could build a town center, cluttered and cozy, a genial contribution to the relatively new metropolis still taking shape along the Charles.

the view from allston mass

8 December 2008

This blog is a sequel to my Paris blog "Views from Montparnasse. " The view from the Charles River flood plain here in Allston is a bit different from the lofty vistas offered by Montparnasse. I'm still adjusting as I write this. But--apart from the unavoidable temptation of the rhyming titles--what can this blog have to do with that other, first venture of mine into the blogosphere? Visually, not much, as the attached photo might suggest. Allston is a gritty place, surrounded by highways and rail lines and truck depots, paved over and overbuilt though underused and largely unappreciated. Few would compare it with Paris.

But just as "Views from Montparnasse" was always a metaphor as much as a description, my intention in this blog will be to develop a point of view related to my living here in Allston. In choosing this title I am hoping it will be possible to retain something of the spirit that informed my Paris blog; that is, I hope to look at the world from Allston in much the same way I looked at it from Montparnasse. That other project involved looking at an urban neighborhood (and its larger metropolis) through cultural and historical windows that happened to present themselves, and this Boston blog will do the same. Just as the view from Paris included the very hopeful lens of a political movement whose goal is to build a whole new world of social and productive relations, these views from Allston will hardly be able to ignore the massive physical development planned for this neighborhood by our large institutional neighbor to the north. The new world taking shape in Allston, and the politics that shape that world, will be a regular topic of these "Views." Everyday life in Allston, in Montparnasse, and everywhere else is determined in part by politics, and the politics of Harvard's expansion into Allston are, like most politics, both threatening and promising. So these "Views from Allston Mass" will take in what they can of the maneuvers of that wealthy and powerful developer, and the response of our valiant little community, and much else besides. On with the blog!