Douglass Shand-Tucci

My first, and so far only, trip to Boston was about five years ago. Although I made it to Harvard's campus, I didn't have the time to visit MIT, which is home to a number of notable modern and contemporary buildings, such as Aalto's dormitory, Saarinen's chapel, and another dormitory, by Steven Holl. As much as I like to visit a place with an architectural guide, I'm not sure this one would have made the ideal companion at MIT, even if it were around at the time. At 400 pages, it is a hefty guide, split into two halves: eight "portals" that paints a historical portrait of MIT, and eight "walks" that highlight different areas of MIT's campus on the left bank of the Charles. The second half – the true guide – is as verbose as the first half, with one walk consisting of basically standing in one point on a bridge and getting an overview of campus. The merits of the book include some beautiful photographs and a map, the latter of which visitors can carry around in lieu of the heavy book that is better suited to reading before taking a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts.… (mere)