The Rogers Building: 1866 - 1938 [Two Place Tales]

Two Place Tales The Rogers Building: Lawrence B. Anderson Introduction This year the College of Environmental Design (CED) at the University of Cali­ fornia, Berkeley, celebrates its twenty-fifth year as an administrative unit, and the twentieth year of its build­ ing, Wurster Hall, Sally Woodbridge has interviewed many of the people who were centrally involved in the creation of the college and its building, and has con­ structed an account of the intentions, circumstances, and personalities that brought them both into being. MIT was founded approxi­ mately a century before the CED and set about con­ structing a building for itself, a building that eventually came to be the home of the Department of Architecture and was later destroyed to make way for an Insur­ ance Building. Lawrence Anderson, who studied in that first building, brings it back to life for us and has extracted from the MIT archives an account of its construction. A compari­ son of the size of the two buildings, the nature of their respective planning pro­ cesses, and the issues that received design attention says much about a century of change in both education and professional practice. There cannot be many of us still remaining whose early professional work was done under its roof. To write about the building now requires embarcation on a nostalgic journey that brings to mind countless moments spent there during its final years. The nostalgia, which might otherwise seem merely sentimental to younger readers, can be offset by an account of the building's inception and construction that will show a seamier side of the picture. That account will be derived primarily from minutes of the Building Committee, preserved in the M I T Archives. They are charmingly inscribed in longhand by the faithful secretary, Thomas H . Webb, who was also secretary to the M I T Government. The building was named to honor William Barton Rogers, whose initiative had led to M I T ' S founding in 1861. In the confusion and stress of the Civil War it was difficult to get the Institute underway. Classes were finally begun in rented space in downtown Boston in 1865, but M I T soon acquired land in a new district, the Back Bay, that was being developed by filling tidal marshes near the mouth of the Charles River. The site was only a block from what later became Copley Plaza, flanked by Richardson's Trinity Church and Charles McKim's Boston Public Library. Rogers was M I T ' S first building project, and for a time it accommodated in its 55,000 square feet of usable space all the early instruc­ tion. Architecture classes began in the building in October 1868 under the direction of William R. Ware, a Boston architect and partner of Henry van Brunt. In 1865 Ware had been charged with developing an architectural program. In 1866 he published the pamphlet, Outline of a Course of Architectural Instruction, but in 1867 he was still in Europe, observ­ ing schools and accumu­ lating the books, photos, and casts he thought necessary. Thus, he was not involved in the construction of the new building. In addition to Rogers, M I T constructed other buildings in the Copley Square area, but i n 1913 the decision was made to settle across the Charles in Cambridge. In 1916 every department except that of architecture moved across the river to a campus designed by Welles Bosworth, an alumnus. That left the School of Architec­ ture in sole possession of the Rogers building, probably through its choice. The School had throughout its early history far more affinity with architects practicing in Boston than w i t h its parent academic institution. A very large number of its students attended classes part-time and were not eager to commute to Cambridge for general courses. They could w a l k to and from the offices where they worked, as could Places/Volume 1, Number 4