Aerial view of the Harvard campus, spread across either side of the Charles River 

Aerial view of Harvard Yard and Memorial Hall 

Harvard Biological Laboratories  The science has changed since Harvard's Biological Laboratories were completed in 1932, but the Labs remain at the center of Harvard's biological research work in the 21st century, serving as a primary building for research groups of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Notable research conducted in the labs includes that of the winners of the 1967 and 1980 Nobel Prizes. The door panels, the building's exterior friezes, and the pair of life-sized bronze rhinoceros flanking its entrance are the work of sculptor Katherine Lane Weems. Cut into the brick facade, the friezes represent four of the zoographic regions of the world.

1940 - Hemenway Gymnasium  Hemenway Gymnasium was designed for Harvard University by Boston-based Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott and opened in 1940; it is the second building on Harvard's campus with this name. The building was used during World War II as an underwater sound laboratory and later reconverted to a gymnasium. The construction of the gymnasium was funded by the university. The site is named for Augustus Hemenway (A.B. 1875), Boston philanthropist and Harvard overseer. Hemenway had donated the funds for the original gymnasium structure, built in 1878, which stood nearby.

2000 - Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center  With the Holyoke Center (1958-1965), architect José Luis Sert set a new direction for increased density and large-scale modern architecture at Harvard University. Working closely with Werner Gumpertz on construction details, the building introduced radically innovative design to the building’s exterior envelope. It exploited the full potential of the 100’ zoning envelope in place in Cambridge at the time, and has became the model urban design solution for expanding an institution on valuable city real estate. The building was first renovated in 1995 by Prellwitz Chilinski Associates which expanded commercial uses and character on street level. In 2000, it was renovated by Chan Krieger and Associates who added new lighting, new interior finishes, automatic sunshade control and new signage system. In 2008 Bruner/Cott with the engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz and Heger created a comprehensive analysis of the building envelope performance to emphasize energy efficiency, and suggested strategies to markedly reduce heat loss and solar gain, improve resistance to wind and rain, and increase user comfort.

1932 - Memorial Church  Memorial Church is the physical and spiritual heart of Harvard University's campus. Students are welcomed to school here, and they graduate on its steps, which face Tercentenary Yard. With Widener Library, Memorial Church defines the "New" Yard. Like Widener, it was completed during the presidency of Lawrence Lowell presidency. Its small and precise colonnade emphasizes the height of its spire. Memorial Church stands of the site of Appleton Chapel (1851-1931). A bronze plaque at the east end of the church depicts the original chapel.

2014 - Harvard Art Museums  The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985) and four research centers: the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis (founded in 1958), the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art (founded in 2002), the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies (founded in 1928). The three museums that constitute the Harvard Art Museums were initially integrated into a single institution under the name Harvard University Art Museums in 1983. The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. In 2008, the Harvard Art Museums' historic building at 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, was closed for a major renovation and expansion project. During the beginning phases of this project, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway, Cambridge, displayed selected works from the collections of the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Sackler museums from September 13, 2008 through June 1, 2013. The renovated building at 32 Quincy Street unites the three museums in a single state-of-the-art facility designed by architect Renzo Piano, which increases gallery space by 40% and adds a glass, pyramidal roof. In a view of the front facade, the glass roof and other expansions are mostly concealed, largely preserving the original appearance of the building. The renovation was supervised by LeMessurier Consultants and Silman Associates. The renovation adds six levels of galleries, classrooms, lecture halls, and new study areas providing access to parts of the 250,000-piece collection of the museums. The new building was opened in November 2014.

1925 - Fogg Museum  The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums. The museum was originally housed in an Italian Renaissance-style building designed by Richard Morris Hunt. In 1925, the building was replaced by a Georgian Revival-style structure on Quincy Street, designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott.

1911 - Andover Hall  Completed in 1911 at a cost of $300,000, Andover Hall at Harvard University was designed by Allen and Collens, a firm that focused largely on neo-medieval and ecclesiastical designs, and is the only building at Harvard built in the Collegiate Gothic style of architecture. Andover Hall was commissioned by Andover Theological Seminary, which, by 1906, saw its enrollment slide and entered an affiliation with the Divinity School in 1908. The Hall contained a chapel, library, dorms, and seminar and lecture rooms. Today, the building still contains a chapel and some classrooms, but it also holds many administrative and faculty offices. On May 1, 2019, the building's name was changed to Swartz Hall in honor of philanthropists Susan Shallcross Swartz and James R. Swartz. Andover Hall and Andover-Harvard Theological Library opened its doors in the fall of 1911. One of the first acts of the Council (Oct. 31, 1911) was its vote “that the freedom of the Library be extended to the instructors and students of the Episcopal Theological School, of the New Church Theological School, and of Radcliffe College.” Extending privileges to the first two schools foreshadows the later extension of mutual privileges through the Boston Theological Institute. The “freedom” given to Radcliffe was without parallel at Harvard for many years to come, although it would be over 40 more years before Harvard Divinity School would admit women as degree candidates. The renovated Harvard University Swartz Hall is the center of academic, administrative, and student life at the Harvard Divinity School. The historic building houses classrooms, a lecture hall, a multi-faith chapel, and faculty and staff offices. ABA completed a master plan that assessed the existing conditions, established a preservation approach, studied program needs, and developed a phased plan for renovation and expansion. In the first project following the master plan, ABA renovated classrooms in Swartz Hall, introducing new technology and flexible furnishings to accommodate traditional and emerging teaching methodologies. The current phase of renovations relocates Student Services to Swartz Hall and replaces an existing building addition known as the Cloister Link with an approximately 10,000-square-foot addition. At the ground level, visitors will find a welcoming café; the upper level holds a 200-seat multipurpose event room, providing a large convening space for HDS and the University.

1872 - Matthews Hall  Matthews Hall is a freshman dormitory for Harvard University, constructed in Harvard Yard in 1872. The building was a gift from Nathan Matthews. Together with Weld Hall and Grays Hall, it completes the southern end of the Old Yard. Matthews Hall serves as a dormitory for first year students. When Matthews donated the money for the hall, he stipulated that half the income of the dormitory would be given to needy and deserving students, with a preference for ministry students. The new building required that Dane Hall be moved 70 feet. The hall is built on the site of the Indian College, Harvard's first brick building, which housed a printing press, classrooms, and living quarters for English and American Indian students from 1655 to 1698. The first Bible in North America was printed at the Indian College from 1659-1663, translated into Algonquian by John Eliot. Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck of the Wampanoag tribe was the first American Indian to graduate in 1665.

1953 - Aldrich Hall  When it opened in 1953, Aldrich Hall provided much-needed classroom space on the HBS campus. Plans for a dedicated classroom building had been eliminated from the 1920s campus construction for economic reasons, and growing enrollments in the wake of World War II stretched the limits of provisional facilities in Baker and Carpenter Halls. With extensive input from Dean Donald K. David and HBS faculty—and research that included the construction and testing of a full-size classroom prototype on land behind Baker Library—the architectural firm Perry, Shaw, Hepburn & Dean developed a revolutionary horseshoe-shaped classroom layout specifically designed to facilitate case-method teaching. Features such as tiered, swivel seating along curved, continuous writing surfaces; moveable blackboards and projection screens; and several different kinds of lighting were radical at the time, but ideally suited to the dynamic interactions among students and teachers during case-method discussions. Aldrich’s 17 classrooms are situated in an edifice supported by unusually long I beams, intended to facilitate future reconfigurations. However, when the 105,726-square-foot building was updated in the 1980s, its basic design, acoustics, sight lines, and lighting were all deemed to have stood up well to the test of time, and no extensive changes were made. The latest renovations to Aldrich Hall were made in 2004 when extensive technology upgrades were made including three projection zones, audio- and video-conferencing capabilities, an in-room camera for recording classroom sessions, at-seat student polling, and wireless network access. The building earned LEED Silver certification in 2006. ABOUT THE NAME Aldrich Hall is made possible by a gift from the only son of the legendary businessman and oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was a noted philanthropist who believed that wealth should be “an instrumentality of constructive social living.” In that spirit, he was president of the Rockefeller Foundation, funded the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, purchased the Manhattan acreage that became home to the United Nations, purchased and donated thousands of acres of land to national parks, and—in 1949—funded Harvard Business School’s new classroom building. Rockefeller suggested that the building be named for his father-in-law, Nelson W. Aldrich, who represented Rhode Island in the US House of Representatives from 1879 to 1881, then in the US Senate from 1881 to 1911. Aldrich, a notable financier and leader of the Republican Party, was chairman of the National Monetary Commission and the Federal Reserve. A driving force in international trade and monetary policies, he was sometimes called the “authentic voice of J.P. Morgan.” Aldrich began his career as a grocery boy, and Rockefeller believed his rise to power represented the kind of “individual initiative” that was fostered by Harvard Business School’s approach to enlightened management. In providing the funds for an HBS classroom building, Rockefeller honored his father-in-law’s accomplishments and registered a vote of confidence for the School’s mission. The financing of Aldrich Hall is the Rockefeller Foundation’s second major gift to the School. In the 1930s, the Foundation provided seven years of generous funding to support research at the HBS “Fatigue

1994 - Hauser Hall  Hauser Hall was designed by the noted Boston firm of Kallmann, McKinnell and Wood and was completed in 1994. It serves as a classroom and academic office building for the Harvard Law School, and received the Harleston Parker Medal from the Boston Society of Architects in 1994 for being "the most beautiful piece of architecture, building, monument or structure within the limits of the City of Boston or of the Metropolitan Parks District". The site is named for Harvard alumnae and benefactors Gustave and Rita Hauser of New York. The building was the 1994 winner of the Boston Society of Architects Harleston Parker Medal.

1903 - Harvard Stadium  Harvard Stadium was completed in 1903, with modifications in the 1910s and 1920s. The structure is a designated National Historic Landmark, and is notable for its early use of monolithic reinforced concrete, its simple horseshoe shape, and its role in shaping the sport of American football. It is the oldest college football venue still in use. Construction of the Stadium was funded by the Harvard College class of 1879 and funds from the Athletic Committee. The building was constructed from funds provided by the Athletic Committee and the Class of 1879. "The WGU (World’s Greatest University, as a Globe columnist snidely dubs Harvard) is preparing to launch a major expansion into Allston, across the river from Cambridge. In the older photo, we show an early beachhead of that invasion, the Harvard Stadium of 1902. College football was the sport of the day, and WGU, hard as it is to believe, was a national power. WGU found it wasn’t easy to shoehorn a major sports facility into a crowded town. So the stadium was sited across the river, to be followed in the 1920s by the Harvard Business School. Today, unable to grow in Cambridge in the face of defiant neighborhoods, Harvard hopes to drag other schools – all of which are kicking and screaming – out of the magic ZIP code 02138. The stadium is a remarkable building. The entire exterior is wrapped in an arcade that is one huge chunk of poured-in-place concrete. The largest such structure in the world at the time, the stadium demonstrated the architectural potential of this new material, preceding, by two years, Frank Lloyd Wright’s great Unity Temple in Chicago. The stadium’s horseshoe shape, with classical details, recalled the theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, an association the young scholar-athletes must have enjoyed. A performance of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, with live horses, took place here in 1906. The stadium’s lead architect was Charles McKim, designer of the Boston Public Library and Symphony Hall. In the foreground of the older photo is a rickety bridge across the Charles, with an operable span in the middle for coal and lumber barges. A bridge has stood in this location since 1663. The new photo, in which the stadium is obscured by more recent buildings, shows the Larz Anderson Bridge of 1913, designed by Edmund Wheelwright, best loved for his Harvard Lampoon building. Both photos were taken from an upper window of the Weld Boathouse of 1907. In its early days, Allston-Brighton was known as Little Cambridge. With Harvard’s anticipated expansion and investment in the community, it will perhaps, in a sense, be so again." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Harvard Stadium," Boston Globe, 9 July 2000

1963 - Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts  The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, home to Harvard's visual arts department and the Sert Gallery, is the only building in the United States designed by influential French architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965).

1912 - Historic Hasty Pudding Theatre  The Historic Hasty Pudding Theatre (now known as the New College Theatre since its renovation in 2007) is the home of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, which at 160+ years is the oldest collegiate theatre group in the nation. Built in 1912, the Theatre is not the original home of the Hasty Pudding, which held its first performance in a Harvard University student dormitory in 1844. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals' performances have become famous for their professional quality and wit, and because all of the female characters are played by men in drag.

1928 - Out of Town News  The building was formerly the Harvard stop kiosk for the Boston Elevated Railway. This kiosk is designated as a National Historic Landmark.

1964 - Peabody Terrace  Peabody Terrace Graduate Student Housing was designed in the 1960s by José Luis Sert, then Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Today, the high-rise towers are important examples of poured-in-place reinforced concrete modernist design; architects from around the world come to study the iconic housing complex. Thirty years of unfortunate maintenance decisions had left the towers in desperate need of repair and modernization. Exterior work included repairs to the concrete envelope, complete replacement of the original window walls, and a full accessibility review. Interior work upgraded all critical building systems. Collaboration with the student-tenants helped to define the issues and support a contemporary lifestyle in common spaces and apartments. Improving the function of modernist landmarks lets a new generation appreciate important 20th century modernist buildings. Today, Peabody Terrace is one of the most popular Harvard-affiliated housing sites

1815 - University Hall  At the heart of Harvard Yard, University Hall houses important administrative and meeting rooms — notably, the offices of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The large, symmetrical building was designed in 1813 by Charles Bulfinch, primary architect of the United States Capitol and the Massachusetts State House. A neoclassical icon, University Hall is one of the most important historic structures in New England. This major restoration transformed the aging landmark into a functionally modern, code compliant building. Work included extensive historic restoration and discreet insertion of all-new mechanical and electrical systems, with respect for the building’s historic context, proportions and materials. Lifts and concealed ramps were integrated within the building and with the landscape of Harvard Yard. Significant structural repairs included the restoration of spalling exterior granite and reconstruction of sagging entry stairs. In the original basement, excavation increased headroom for meeting rooms and offices, and provided a new sub-basement level for mechanical equipment.

1950 - Child Hall  Child Hall is a graduate student dormitory at Harvard University completed in 1950. It was designed by The Architects Collaborative, founded by noted International Style architect and Harvard architecture professor Walter Gropius. This building has been designated by the University Planning Office as having a Notable Interior. The site is named after Francis J. Child, a writer, scholar, and Harvard's first Professor of English.

2007 - Farkas Hall, New College Theater  A new home for Harvard’s undergraduate theatrical and musical performance, Farkas Hall restores, transforms, and expands the former Hasty Pudding Club at the heart of Harvard Square. Originally a social club and home of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the new stage continues the traditions of the Theatricals, including the Man and Woman of the Year awards, and in addition hosts production by Harvard-affiliated groups and performances open to the public, signaling a new era of innovation for the performing arts at Harvard. The original front one-third of the 1887 brick structure and its entry porches were retained and restored for lobby and multi-purpose uses. The rear two-thirds of the building was removed, rebuilt and expanded with three new stories below grade for the new theater and its support spaces and three above for a black box/rehearsal space and stage house to accommodate the full theatre program. The 272-seat theater is entered from the restored lobby and steps down a full floor level to the stage. Inside the theatre, deep crimson aniline dyed wood paneling and internally lit air diffusers create a bold and imaginative environment for student productions. Equipped with a moveable thrust stage, orchestra pit, and full theater lighting, the flexible performance space is rich with educational opportunities. The south porch of the original building and adjacent ramped passage form the new accessible public theatre entry. Glimpsed from the street, the transparent lobby zone of the new building invites passersby into an intriguing modern theatre just beyond the historic façade.

1874 - Memorial Hall  Memorial Hall was conceived by Harvard alumni in memory of Harvard affiliates who fell during the Civil War. The architects were invited in 1865. In 1870, the building was named Memorial Hall and the cornerstone was laid. The building went into use in 1874, and the tower was finally completed in 1877. There are many stained-glass windows inside the Memorial Hall complex, including four by John La Farge. The windows were installed between 1879 and 1902. Today, Memorial Hall is used for large lecture classes, performances for the Harvard community and beyond, and as the Freshman dining hall. Visitors cannot enter the dining hall. In the basement is the Queenshead Pub, Harvard's student pub.

1915 - Widener Library  The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library is Harvard University's flagship library. Built with a gift from Eleanor Elkins Widener, the library is a memorial to her son, Harry, Class of 1907. Harry was an enthusiastic young bibliophile who perished aboard the Titanic. It had been Harry's plan to donate his personal collection to the University once it provided a suitable alternative to the outdated and inadequate library then located in Gore Hall. Mrs. Widener fulfilled her son's dream by building a facility of monumental proportions, with over 50 miles of shelves and the capacity to hold over three million volumes. The library opened in 1915, but Harvard's collections continued to grow at an astounding rate. By the late 1930s, Widener's shelves were at capacity. Space was at a premium for staff and patrons as well as books, which led the administration to begin a lengthy decentralization process. Over time Harvard built several new libraries to house its increasingly specialized collections. By redistributing books to new libraries, space opened up in Widener, but it was gradually given over to the growing staff hired to attend to the collections.

1978 - Littauer Building  Littauer Center was designed by Architectural Resources Cambridge and opened in 1978. It was built for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The buildings is named for Lucius Littauer (1859 – 1944), an American politician, businessman and philanthropist. Since creating the Master Plan for the site in 1976, ARC has been at the center of development for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Modeled after its neo-Georgian brick neighbors, the original courtyard concept is reminiscent of adjacent Harvard River Houses. Beginning with the 105,000 SF Littauer Center completed in 1978, three additional buildings brought the KSG campus to over 250,000 SF. Rising past classrooms, conference spaces and the School's library, the interior focus of Littauer and the KSG campus is the building's sky-lit atrium, originally known as the ARCO Forum. Twenty-five years later, the renovated and rededicated John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum offers multiple seating at three levels for hosting debates, television broadcasts and other events supporting the vital connection between the School and the real world of politics.

1999 - Maxwell-Dworkin  Maxwell-Dworkin was built for Harvard's Engineering and Applied Sciences division and opened in 1999. It was designed by Payette Associates of Boston. The site is named after Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer, mothers of Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates III and Microsoft President Steven A. Ballmer.

1972 - Gund Hall  Designed by Australian architect and Harvard University Graduate School of Design graduate John Andrews, Gund Hall opened in 1972. Major gifts to finance the new building were received from the George Gund Foundation; the Gund family; John L. Loeb, SB'24, LLD'71 (hon); GSD alumni/æ and friends; and the Office of Education of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Gund Hall offers students a stimulating environment in which to work, including studio and office areas for approximately 500 students and more than 100 faculty and staff; lecture and seminar rooms; workshops and darkrooms; an audiovisual center; computer facilities; a cafeteria; a project room; Piper Auditorium; and the Frances Loeb Library. The yard area is used for basketball, volleyball, picnics; as an exhibition area for class projects; and as the setting for commencement ceremonies. The central studio space extends through five levels under a stepped, clear-span roof that admits natural light and provides views toward Boston. The dramatic facade and extensive glass surfaces make an eloquent statement about the design excellence and professional creativity for which the school is known. Some administrative offices and offices for doctoral students, plus seminar rooms, are located opposite Gund Hall at 7 Sumner Road.

2003 - One Western Avenue  One Western Avenue occupies a prominent site at the southeast corner of the Harvard Business School, adjacent to the Charles River, where Western Avenue crosses Soldiers Field Road. The site marks arrival to Harvard’s campus from downtown Boston and areas south. The building’s configuration and image are based on interpretations of its physical context--the early-twentieth-century, five-story, brick-clad, U-shaped neo-Georgian courtyard houses and the mid-twentieth-century, twenty-story, concrete paneled modern towers. While One Western Avenue combines these two emblematic types, it adds something else, a three-story bridge raised four levels above the ground and spanning 180 feet. This volume divides the main central void into two contrasting spaces, a courtyard (with framed views to the river) and a front lawn. It creates a large covered terrace, furnished with a wooden platform intended for everyday use as well as special occasions. This configuration produces desirable conditions that normally exclude one another: a courtyard open to the river and three stories of apartments occupying the same riverfront situation. The low-rise is wrapped in two brick patterns, one for the exterior walls and the other for the interior walls. These overlap in the entry passageway, producing a third pattern. The mid-rise and the bridge are clad in cast stone blocks, but used differently from one another. The surface treatment of all of the volumes is designed to allow the ideal prismatic geometry of the various building masses to register on the façade planes. One of the first buildings designed to fulfill a new sustainability initiative at Harvard, known as "The Greening of the Crimson," the project has recently received a silver LEED rating.

2014 - Tozzer Anthropology Building  The university’s Anthropology Department, made up by Archaeology and Social Anthropology, had been housed in two buildings limiting social interaction between the two programs. With the consolidation of library holdings, Harvard University sought to unify the programs under one roof by moving Social Anthropology’s administration offices and teaching spaces into the new building, connecting it directly to Archaeology, and calling for generous social spaces for collaboration and engagement. Modernist era university buildings are aging across America due to outdated construction that was based on building codes that cannot meet contemporary envelope, seismic, and energy requirements. At the same time universities cannot dismiss the embodied energy and materials that make up these buildings. The Tozzer Anthropology Building transforms the public presence and programs of Johnson and Hotveld’s 1971 Tozzer Library by re-using the existing building’s foundation, campus infrastructure connections, and steel and concrete structure. The new massing increases usable SF by 29% with a copper roof volume, which rotates to capture daylight and strengthens a reading of the building as a pavilion in the Peabody Courtyard. The project’s massing strategy adds two stories of new construction under a large copper roof volume, which rotates to capture daylight for a large internal light well around which the internal programs revolve. An exterior porch had separated the building from Divinity Avenue, and a dis-used tunnel prohibited access to the courtyard. The design creates a public entry on Divinity Avenue, which establishes a new public connection between the lobby, the exterior courtyard and the Peabody Museum Collections. The massing strengthens a more independent reading of the Tozzer Anthropology building as a pavilion in the Peabody Courtyard. The new design includes new landscape elements and grading of the Peabody Courtyard as well as the design integration of archeological photographs and artefacts.

1981 - Sherman Fairchild Biochemistry Laboratory  The Sherman Fairchild Laboratory was designed by Payette, a Boston-based architecture firm, and completed in 1981. It currently houses the Harvard department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. The site is named for Sherman Fairchild (1896-1971) an inventor, philanthropist and founder of over 70 companies, including Fairchild Aviation and Fairchild Semiconductor. In 2009, Payette was retained to plan, program and design the comprehensive renovation of a 100,000 SF research building constructed in 1978. Following an assessment of the existing envelope, mechanical and electrical systems, it was decided to renew both the programmatic space and the infrastructure needed to support new programs. We focused on strategies which placed these spaces adjacent to the exterior envelope where they could benefit from natural light and views outside. This discovery, among others, led to the development of a radically different laboratory floor organization than what had existed previously. It was also highly prototypical for this science. Employing a number of progressive design strategies to meet aggressive energy targets and reduce water use, this comprehensive renovation achieved LEED-CI 3 Platinum Certification in March 2012; it has achieved the highest number of LEED-CI points (95) achieved by any LEED-CI lab project in the world to date.

1948 - Harvard Graduate Center  The Harvard Graduate Center, also known as "the Gropius Complex" (including Harkness Commons), was commissioned of The Architects Collaborative by Harvard University in 1948. The first modern building on the campus, it was also one of the first endorsements of the modern style by a major university and was seen in the national and architectural presses as a turning point in the acceptance of the aesthetic in the United States.

1917 - Adolphus Busch Hall  Adolphus Busch Hall is a Harvard University building located at 27 Kirkland Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is named for brewer and philanthropist Adolphus Busch, former president of the Anheuser-Busch company, who contributed $265,000 to its building fund. The hall was designed by architect German Bestelmeyer to house Harvard's Germanic Museum. Its cornerstone was laid in 1912 and the building completed in 1917, but it was not opened to the public until 1921, officially because of a lack of coal. The Germanic Museum evolved into the Busch-Reisinger Museum, the only museum in North America dedicated to the study of art from the German-speaking countries of Central and Northern Europe. The Busch-Reisinger was located in Adolphus Busch Hall from 1921-1991 and the hall continues to house the Busch-Reisinger's founding collection of medieval plaster casts, as well as an exhibition on the history of the museum. The hall also hosts concerts on its Flentrop pipe organ, which was made famous by organist E. Power Biggs, who broadcast and recorded his long-playing records there. The hall is also home to Harvard's Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies.

1870 - Weld Hall  Weld Hall is a residential hall at Harvard University. It was the second building on Harvard's campus that was designed by Ware and Van Brundt (the first was Memorial Hall).

1998 - Harvard Museum of Natural History  The museum is housed in the University Museum Building, located on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It displays a sampling of specimens drawn from the collections of the University's three natural history research museums: the Harvard University Herbaria the Museum of Comparative Zoology the Harvard Mineralogical Museum. The museum is physically connected to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at 26 Oxford Street. This museum is the most visited museum at Harvard University. The museum starting collecting in 1858, and the current collection is about 21 million specimens.

2006 - Harvard University Blackstone Offices  The 46 Blackstone Street renovation unified three 19th-century masonry buildings into an environmentally sustainable workplace for Harvard University Operations Services (UOS). A glazed 100'-long lightslot joins the buildings, and a three-story skylit stairway allows light deep into the building. Over 90% of occupants now enjoy daylight, fresh air and views from operable windows. Blackstone was Harvard's first LEED Platinum-certified building, and a model for environmental design on campus. At the time of completion, it was the highest-scoring LEED renovation in the nation, and the oldest building to earn Platinum certification. Energy-saving features include an innovative insulation system at the historic brick walls, a geothermal cooling system, and a heat recovery wheel. Energy-efficient, low-VOC equipment and materials were used throughout (including daylight sensors, occupant sensors, and an energy-efficient elevator). A landscaped courtyard, sculpted from earth excavated during construction, requires no irrigation; a bio-retention pond treats storm water runoff.

2011 - Clover Restaurant  Part of a larger concept for healthy fast food, the Clover mission is to revolutionize the way food is produced, distributed, and ultimately consumed. Through a system of local hubs, restaurants, pods, and food trucks, community networks are emphasized. Scaled up, this will have an enormous positive impact on the environment since the polluting capacity of modern food systems is on par to buildings and automobiles. This first prototype restaurant is in the Holyoke Center, the Harvard owned building designed by Josep Lluís Sert. The approach of the project was to combine the minimum-footprint-aesthetic of the Clover brand with the abstract spatial concepts of Sert’s space: Like a minimalist art installation, fluorescent ‘cloud canopies’ are suspended below the original waffle ceiling. A cut into the existing mezzanine brings natural light from a previously hidden skylight while a wire trellis allows climbing ivy to reach this light source. The idea of transparency is both literal and figural: The boundary between ‘kitchen’ and ‘customer’ is dissolved to reveal the workings of the food-making while the use of glass allows visual communication between spaces while reflecting and multiplying light.

1929 - Harvard-Yenching Library  The Harvard–Yenching Library is the primary location for East Asia-related collections at Harvard Library. The building was originally built in 1929 for Harvard's Institute of Geographical Exploration and currently houses part of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, in addition to the Harvard-Yenching Library. In addition to East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Manchu, and Mongolian), it houses collections in European languages and Southeast Asian language (Vietnamese). Totaling more than 1.5 million volumes, the Harvard-Yenching Library has one of the largest collections in East Asian studies outside of Asia. The library has been located at 2 Divinity Avenue on the Cambridge campus of Harvard University since around 1957. Following World War II, the library began collecting more social science publications. The once predominantly humanistic collection evolved into a research library that encompasses East Asian materials in all academic disciplines. A. Kaiming Chiu served as head librarian of the library until his retirement in 1964, after which he was succeeded by Eugene Wu. In 1965, the Chinese-Japanese Library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute was renamed the Harvard-Yenching Library to reflect the expanded nature of the library's collections. The Library eventually added Tibetan, Mongolian and Manchu publications, as well as Western language monographs and journals. A Korean collection was added in 1951, and a Vietnamese collection in 1973. In 1976, management of the library shifted from the independent Harvard-Yenching Institute to the Harvard College Library.

1927 - Harvard Business School Baker Library and Bloomberg Center  Baker Library was designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1927 as the centerpiece of the Harvard Business School campus. RAMSA's renovation and addition reconceived the building as a 160,000-gross-square-foot center for research and group study, with greatly expanded meeting facilities, offices for faculty and their support staff, and archival storage for the Library's one-of-a-kind collection of historical business materials. The historic north facade was fully restored with replacement double-hung Georgian windows that meet twenty-first-century energy performance goals and satisfy ultraviolet protection requirements—especially important to the library's restored historic reading room. Important interior rooms of the original building were restored; we rectified earlier renovations by creating new rooms in the existing building; and the original self-supporting stacks were replaced with new construction to accommodate offices, seminar rooms, and lounges. Faculty office configurations were standardized and organized to integrate shared spaces for collaboration. A skylit atrium brings natural light deep into the building and provides an informal meeting place for students and faculty. Central to the reorganization is a second front entrance at what was originally the back of the building to address the reorientation of the campus to the south, making the building an easily accessible crossroads of the HBS campus. Our design provides for pedestrian movement through the building from north to south through the original portico and lobby, and secondary circulation from west to east, all on the first floor. Baker Library advances the mission of the Harvard Business School by providing distinctive information services, resources and expertise so that the community excels. They support faculty, doctoral and MBA students, executive education participants, and external researchers in their research and curriculum activities. They also support HBS and Harvard alumni and undergraduates and, to a limited extent, the general public. The collections, both physical and digital, cover most aspects of management including such specialties as accounting and control, agribusiness, banking, business and economic history, commerce, economic philosophy, finance, information technology, international business, management education, manufacturing, marketing, political economy, and transportation. The library's collections are located in the Stamps Reading Room and the two lower levels of the building.

1877 - Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology  The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with particular focus on the ethnography and archaeology of the Americas. The museum is caretaker to over 1.2 million objects, some 900 linear feet of documents, 2,000 maps and site plans, and approximately 500,000 photographs. The museum is located at Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. The museum is one of the four Harvard Museums of Science & Culture open to the public.

1880 - Sever Hall  Sever Hall was built with 100,000 bricks and has elaborate brick carvings. The archway was built with unique acoustic properties. If you face the archway and whisper into it, it can be clearly heard on the other side of the archway. It now houses the film program and the Visual and Environmental Studies programs at Harvard.

2004 - Harvard Science Center and Expansion  Three rooftop additions expand the 1970 modern landmark designed by Josep Lluis Sert to accommodate growing departments of the History of Science, Statistics and Computer Services, and the world acclaimed Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. The main addition at the East Terrace is a four-story structure replacing a one-story wing. Housing the Department of the History of Science and the Collection, this wing is configured as a four-story townhouse with offices and classrooms and a fully glazed internal stairway. The ground floor Collection, with its new location on the public level, and second-floor Temporary Exhibition and Archives together become a suite of spaces that makes an extraordinary collection available to the public. The design approach respects the integrity and original intentions of Sert’s building, while developing new and renovated space with a complimentary and boldly contemporary architectural language. The limitations of the existing structure required the new additions to be lightweight in concept and construction. The additions are minimal; steel-framed glass volumes are set into the sculptural mass of the original building like crystals embedded in rock. The cast-glass channel enclosure is luminous and light- a counterpart to the robust texture of the original precast concrete- and provides a density and rhythm compatible with the original building. The existing courtyard is transformed with a new dining terrace and green garden. The raised platform and plantings conceal air vents and equipment for the building’s mechanical room below. The new additions substantially contribute to making the full building meet current energy guidelines.

1963 - William James Hall  William James Hall is a 15-story building on the campus of Harvard University designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1963. The building is named in honor of William James, who was instrumental in establishing the Harvard Psychology department. William James Hall houses the Psychology, Sociology, and Social Studies departments.

1881 - Austin Hall  Austin Hall, Harvard University Law School’s oldest dedicated structure, was designed by architect H.H. Richardson and completed in 1884, then remodeled in 1964. It stands out as one of the best examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Single-story wings flank a heavy, two-story central mass, with the reading room extending rearwards to form an overall T shape. A central entryway framed with Romanesque triple arch is set deep within the building's flat front facade, with an asymmetric stairway tower protruding forwards to its right. The building is faced with Longmeadow sandstone in striking polychrome patterns, the light stones forming checkerboards within dark, reddish walls. The arches are of pale Ohio sandstone, as is the thick cornice band incised with a lengthy and sententious motto.

1907 - Langdell Hall  Langdell Hall was constructed in two phases, the earlier south wing in 1907 and the later north and west wings in 1928-29. It was designed by the Boston firm of Shepley Rutan and Coolidge (later Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott) as the main library for the Harvard Law School, a role it continues to serve today. The funding for the construction came from the Harvard Law School. The site is named for Christopher Columbus Langdell (1826-1906, A.B. 1851; LL.B. 1853). Langdell was the first dean of Harvard Law School. He is most known for the development of the case study method of legal education. The west wing of Langdell was renamed Areeda Hall in 1996 in honor of professor Phillip E. Areeda.

2019 - Sackler Building  The Arthur M. Sackler Building was designed by British architect James Stirling, recipient of the international Pritzker Architecture Prize and was used as a museum for many years containing art galleries, offices, classrooms, curatorial storage, and a large auditorium. The building originally opened in 1985 as the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. The building is on Harvard’s “notable interiors” list and the project includes preservation and restoration of key locations throughout the building. In addition, a three-story Sol LeWitt mural will be restored as part of the project and ancient architectural fragments that were imbedded in the monumental stair during the original construction are being replicated and reinstalled. The transformational project will include over forty faculty offices, design studios, classrooms, art-making spaces, and a lecture hall for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences History of Art and Architecture Department, the Graduate School of Design, and an undergraduate, interdisciplinary creative arts program. The renovation included the preservation and restoration of important interior elements as well as the creation of faculty and staff offices, design studios, classrooms, art-making spaces, and a lecture hall for the Department of History of Art + Architecture, the Graduate School of Design, and the Art Lab Annex. The project, which is targeting LEED Gold, addresses multiple deferred maintenance issues, including a new roof, accessibility, comprehensive building infrastructure, exterior envelope repairs, and significant seismic upgrades. Occupancy was permitted in January 2019.

2011 - Caspersen Student Center  The Wasserstein Hall-Caspersen Student Center-Clinical Wing building was completed in 2011. It houses academic offices and classrooms, a student center and clinical programs for Harvard University Law School and was designed by the noted New York firm Robert A. M. Stern Architects. The site is named after Bruce Wasserstein (1947-2009) and Finn Caspersen. Wasserstein was a New York investment banker and businessman. Finn Caspersen (-2009) was a New Jersey businessman and philanthropist.

1914 - Fanny Peabody Mason Music Building  The Music Building was originally built in 1914 to a design by the New York-based firm of Howells and Stokes (John Mead Howells, A.B. 1891). The original construction included Paine Hall. In 1911, a fund was raised by subscription for general maintenance. The site is named for Fanny Peabody Mason a noted benefactor to the Harvard music program. In 1955-56 the Eda Loeb Music Library was added (to a design by Stanley Parker). And in 1970-72 the Fanny Peabody Mason Music Building was added (designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott of Boston). In 1997, a small renovation created new office space for the music department. The building was initially funded with an anonymous donation of $80,000 and later by various donors including James Loeb, Paul and Felix Warburg and Dave Hennen Morris.

2019 - Schwartz Common & Pavilion  The Schwartz Common and Pavilion were dedicated in 2019 in recognition of a gift from The Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation. Representing an outdoor hub of community life at HBS, the Schwartz Common and Pavilion are places for events, exchange and socialization, recreation, and reflection. The Schwartz Common and Pavilion comprise the landscaped quadrangle framed by Aldrich Hall, Cumnock Hall, Klarman Hall, and the Spangler Center. The central open area of the Common provides a vibrant locus for campus activity, from casual interactions to ceremonial events that bring together faculty, staff, students, and alumni. The Pavilion supports seasonal and programmatic flexibility with a contemporary design that resonates with the legacy campus. The HBS Schwartz Pavilion is a contemporary structure located in the heart of the HBS campus. It is designed to be a focal point for student engagement and activity within the newly renovated campus commons. The siting of the pavilion in the commons along the primary circulation routes of the commons arc paths and Kresge Way encourages participation for both informal and structured social exchanges and recreation. The pavilion is configured with two overlapping canopies of different heights that link to the scale of the open lawn of the commons and the building context to define the two primary covered spaces of engagement. Light responsive materials of the canopy and vertical partitions provide privacy, delineate space, and abstract and display activity and occupation.

Harvard University Library Services Building  An inviting glass street wall and a crown of skylights announce the new home of Harvard University Library’s Weissman Preservation Center for some of the rarest books in the world, Information Systems offices, and a street level bookshop. The site on Mt. Auburn Street, surrounded by historic Harvard social clubs and Sert’s Holyoke Center, is at the very heart of pedestrian activity and energetically protected by the Cambridge Historic Commission and neighborhood groups. To balance competing community desires for a building in scale and size suited to the character of the street, and the university’s need for the maximum usable area for its programs, we created a carefully calibrated building with four stories above grade and two stories below using concrete flat slab construction to minimize overall building height. The new building projects an image of lightness and openness with its finely scaled and proportioned window wall facing Mt. Auburn Street. Along the sidewalk, a canopy protects the bookstore, display vitrines, and bookstore entry. At the top floor, sculptural skylights bring daylight into the Preservation Center. A new through block landscaped pathway links Mt. Auburn Street and Winthrop Street beyond. Sustainable design thinking played a critical role in winning community approval. The use of a geothermal heating and cooling system eliminating noisy and unsightly roof top mechanical equipment was a key to success for neighborhood groups. The north facing window wall and generous skylights minimize artificial lighting load, provide an ideal environment for the activities of the Preservation Center, and create a lively and open face to the street. After an extended community review process, members of the Cambridge Historical Commission dubbed the project “ a little jewel box.”

2008 - Northwest Laboratories Museum Yard  Working closely with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), MVVA identified development scenarios for this under-utilized northern edge of the Harvard campus. The site contained a number of out-dated science buildings set in a sea of surface parking. A key master plan recommendation relocated the surface parking in a below grade parking structure, creating an opportunity to continue the expansion and consolidation of the sciences precinct already established to the south. Another critical component was to create a clear and welcoming relationship between the campus and the adjacent Agassiz neighborhood. MVVA helped to establish building setbacks and landscape strategies to mediate the scale of the buildings and maximize permeability. Multiple phases of development were anticipated and strategies for both infill of new buildings and replacement and renovation of existing structures were devised, along with phased landscape strategies. A new Science Yard was established as a space that would become the central corridor and social hub of Harvard's Science campus. A new Science Yard was established as a space that would become the central corridor and social hub of Harvard's Science campus. At the heart of the project, a new contemporary space, Museum Yard provides a central welcoming space where scientists and the community at large could meet. Subtle shaping of topography nestles skylights for the subsurface classrooms and the surrounding seating area and maintains uninterrupted views through the Museum Yard to the building.

1718 - Harvard Yard  Harvard Yard is a 25-acre plot that encompasses the oldest buildings on the Harvard University Campus. The grassy area between Widener Library and Memorial Church is known as Tercentenary Theater. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates recently worked with Harvard over the course of more than a decade to restore and redesign the planting and circulation scheme for the yard. Michael Van Valkenburgh continues to be involved with the future of this landscape through his participation in the Harvard Yard Soils Restoration Project, an ongoing effort to implement a biological soils program at Harvard.

Harvard Square  Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street, near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. "If you think it's a good idea to preserve the architecture of historic places, then Harvard Square presents a quandary. It's always been in a state of constant change. If you really want to preserve its essential character, shouldn't you wish it to keep changing? Does that qualify as preservation? Change it does, sometimes so fast it feels like a time-lapse film. Charles River Bank becomes Harvard Trust becomes BayBank becomes BankBoston becomes Fleet becomes Bank of America. Tweedy undergraduates in preppy jackets and ties give way to Goth-clad teens with pierced tongues. Mom-and-pop stores bite the dust, displaced by brand-name outlets that make today's square into a predictable outdoor mall. We're looking west on Mass. Ave. at snapshots of the square at two moments in its history. The 1906 photo was made for a postcard, one of a series put out by the Detroit Publishing Co. The square then was like a spider in his web: It was a hub for electric trolleys, powered from a network of overhead wires, that connected it with Newton, Watertown, Arlington, and Boston. Behind the closest trolley, we can see the triangular façade of the Harvard Cooperative Society. The Coop took over a building that was built in 1841 as the Cambridge Lyceum, a public lecture hall whose guests are said to have included Nathaniel Hawthorne. Today's Coop building replaced it in 1924, but its triangular pediment is probably the architect's homage to the old lyceum. Ghosts of the past linger in other ways. To the right of the Coop, in the newer photo, is the aluminum-finned façade of the Bank of America. That façade was applied in the 1950s, in an attempt at modernization, over the face of a brick neo-Georgian building of the 1920s, which in turn replaced the mansard-roofed dorm we see in the old photo. The ghost is the 1920s façade, parts of which you can still see if you look through the fins. It's as if the old building were behind prison bars. Cambridge city planners are doing a study of the square, hoping to improve it as a pedestrian environment, with wider sidewalks and easier street crossings. Further change, in short, is on the way." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - A History of Change," Boston Globe, 26 September 2004

1984 - Gilgamesh  “Gilgamesh” stands just outside the Mineralogical and Geological Museum’s doorway, in the courtyard between the museum and the Tozzer Library. “Gilgamesh” was dedicated at a ceremony on Sept. 13, 2012 by Cynthia Hadzi, the artist's wife. Poet David Ferry had just finished his English translation of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” in 1993 when he walked into the studio of sculptor and Harvard Professor Dimitri Hadzi. A stone sculpture there caught Ferry’s eye, and he asked Hadzi if he could use an image of it on his upcoming book cover. Hadzi said yes and went a step further, naming the abstract sculpture “Gilgamesh,” after the ancient king of Uruk, tested by the gods in a search for immortality. Cynthia Hadzi said the statue was a favorite of her husband, who died in 2006.

2013 - Ines  Inés was one of the four sculptures included in 1004 Portraits at Millennium Park. Her portrait, in the artist’s words, is “all at once specific, anonymous, universal, and tranquil.” Shown with her eyes closed in a state of meditation or dreaming, her serene expression inspires contemplation. Like a hologram, the sculpture changes and shifts perspectives when viewed from different angles. Inés was on loan to Harvard Business School from the Richard Gray Gallery as part of the Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition from 2016 to 2018. In Spring 2018, through the support of an anonymous donor, HBS acquired the sculpture for its permanent collection and it is on view on Aldrich Lawn.

1930 - Charlestown Plaque 

1972 - Night Wall I  Night Wall I is a sculpture by Louise Nevelson, installed outside Hauser Hall at Harvard Law School, on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The 1972 painted steel sculpture was donated to Harvard University Art Museums by Mildred and Arnold Glimcher in 1985.The artwork was surveyed by the Smithsonian Institution's "Save Outdoor Sculpture!" program in 1995. It was restored and reinstalled in 2013; funding for the restoration was provided by the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Harvard Law School.

1997 - Cambridge Irish Famine Memorial  The monument was cast by Maurice Harron, and was dedicated to the President of Ireland on the 150th anniversary of the Irish Potato Famine's darkest year: 1847. It is depicting the separation of a family due to The Great Hunger as the base reads "Never again should a people starve in a world of plenty." This monument is located on the Cambridge Common.

1965 - The Onion  The Onion is a monumental sculpture in sheet metal, designed by Alexander Calder. It was gifted by Susan Morse Hilles to the collection of Harvard University, President and Fellows of Harvard College.

2003 - Untitled  Harvard Business School acquired Untitled by Joel Shapiro in 2005 for the permanent collection. Many of Shapiro’s large bronze sculptures, including Untitled, are first made in wood, serving as patterns for the versions cast in bronze. The original wood grain remains in the final bronze casting; the artist’s intention is to reference the entire process of its making. The resulting dynamic arrangements of rectangular forms recall figures moving in space. Shapiro’s works are meant to engage with the surrounding architecture and landscape with a human—if abstracted—presence. His figurative sculptures are also a response to abstract Minimalist works of the 1960s.

1989 - Presence  Presence, a large bronze sculpture of a woman’s head, was installed at Harvard Business School in 1989. In her 1990 biography Mary Frank, art historian Hayden Herrera described how the work came to be: “When [Mary Frank] closed up the Lake Hill house and returned to New York in the fall of 1985, she left a large clay head drying in her studio. The temperature dropped below freezing, causing cracks to open on the sculpture’s cheeks and forehead. When she returned the following spring, she watched the cracks lengthen and move toward the woman’s eyes and mouth. ‘They had their own beauty,’ Mary recalls, ‘but I knew I would have to destroy the piece. One day the sculptor Alan Siegel dropped by and suggested that I cast it. So I did. I never would have thought of it myself.’ Head tilted back, eyes closed, lips open, the woman, like Persephone [another sculpture for Frank’s from the period], offers herself to and imbibes the world around her. For all her fleshy substance, the vivid blue patina makes her seem a concretization of air” (p. 191).

2020 - Peter J. Solomon Gate  In December 2020, a new gate was unveiled in Harvard Yard, near Houghton Library. It was installed through support from Peter J. Solomon ’60, M.B.A. ’63, and his wife, Susan, as part of a larger gift, announced in January 2019, to renovate Houghton Library. That donation also included an extensive collection of rare and treasured children’s literature and illustrations, including a copy of the suppressed first edition of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” These volumes not only provided the catalyst for the Houghton renovation but also inspired some elements of the new gate’s design.

Charles Sumner Statue  The Charles Sumner statue sits on an island right across the street from Johnston Gate, gazing over locals, students, and visitors alike. When Charles Sumner, the ardent abolitionist, passed away from a heart attack in 1874, the entire city of Boston entered a state of mourning. In his eulogy, Sumner was memorialized as “a ripe scholar, a profound statesman, an honest, earnest defender in the darkest hour, as well as at mid-day of freedom, justice and right.” After his death, the Boston Art Committee looked to commemorate Sumner with a statue in his likeness, to be placed prominently in the recently constructed and now burgeoning Boston Public Garden. Towards this end, the Committee solicited designs for the statue from the greater community. They received countless submissions, including some from prominent architects of the day, before eventually settling on one which had been entered anonymously. The winner was a regal, seated version of Sumner, holding an open book in one hand and staring resolutely into the distance. Observers said it captured the great statesman’s thoughtful disposition.

2006 - Honan-Allston Bike Racks and Tree Guards  This branch of the Boston Public Library was opened in 2001 and re-named in 2003 in honor of the former Boston City Councilor Brian Honan. Its widely acclaimed design features three interior courtyards, surrounded by glass-walled readings room that flood the library with light. In front of the library, Richard Duca's four tree guard and bicycle racks merge form and function. With these designs-evocative of bicycles, or perhaps scrolls or calligraphy-Duca wished to create what he describes as "timeless forms and abstract images" with "layers of symbolic meanings significant to the site." The tree guards serve as focal points surrounding the honey locust trees and also act to protect them, while the bicycle racks invite visitors to use greener modes of transportation. Courtesy of Boston Art Commission.

1884 - John Harvard Statue  John Harvard was an Englishman from the Southwark neighborhood of London. He emigrated to New England in 1637 but died of tuberculosis only one year later. He is buried in the Phipps Street Burial Ground in Charlestown. When Harvard died he bequeathed half of his fortune and his entire library to the new college that was founded in Cambridge. The college was named after him in 1638. Daniel Chester French (Massachusetts native who also created the Lincoln Memorial sculpture, among many other famous monuments) sculpted the John Harvard Statue, now known as the "statue of three lies" in 1884. The three lies are: 1) the sculpture is not of John Harvard because, of course, it was created 250 years after Harvard died. French used a student as a model. 2) The statue incorrectly states that the founding of Harvard was in 1638, not 1636. 3) The plaque lists Harvard as the founder of Harvard college, when he was in fact only a benefactor after the Massachusetts colonial government founded the college.