Sekler calls the project "a very, very difficult job for the architect because of the Carpenter Center, which is of great historic importance. To have to put something near that is a great challenge for the architect."

The building features an open courtyard and "a three-story element which is set back from the street and turns to address the Carpenter Center," according to a statement by the architects. It also completes LeCorbusier's site circulation plan, a ramp which begins on Quincy St., continues through the Carpenter Center, and which will extend into the new Werner Otto Hall courtyard and down to Prescott St. by means of an exterior stair.

Marjorie Cohn, acting director of the adjoining Fogg Art Museum, says that while Werner Otto Hall, whose surface is made of limestone and metal panels, has a distinct character from the neighboring Fogg Museum and Carpenter Center, its presence is not too strong.

"We're happy that it is not really an assertive personality," Cohn says. "The Carpenter Center is so dominating it couldn't stand having something too assertive on that site."

Eck, on the other hand, believes that Werner Otto Hall goes too far in distancing itself from its neighboring buildings, something which he terms "a serious problem on this end of Harvard's campus."

"It is clearly a very well-crafted building," Eck says, "but the context is almost totally disregarded."

Taken together, most of the critics say, the three new buildings do not seem to represent a unified movement in Harvard architecture.

"What's interesting to me is that they're all three being built at the same time, three different interpretations of traditionalism," Eck says. "Maybe it represents the decentralization of the University."

One architectural historian, however, complains of what he sees as a common theme in Harvard's recent projects.

"They just seem to me to rely too much on Harvard Square architectural formulas," says Boston architect David P. Handlin '65, saying that most of the buildings sport brick facades with stone details.

"This kind of heavy-handed historicism, usually done without much knowledge of history, seems pretty ill-considered," Handlin says. "Some of the idealism that motivated the buildings back in the '50s and '60s starts to look attractive."

"I'm not for just fossilizing the city at a given point in time," Handlin continues. "Although we have an obligation to the past and what Cambridge was, we have an obligation to the future in that the physical plant of the University has got to respond to the needs of the educational program."