Collecting Eyesores

To the editors:

It's fall-fashion season in Cambridge, and the ever sartorially-challenged John Harvard is back in the Square arrayed in the latest imperial duds. The "dud" to which I refer, of course, being the building proposed for Mt. Auburn Street between the Fox Club and J. Press (News, "Harvard Architecture Stands As a Testament To the Times", Oct. 17).

While little may be offered to extenuate the degeneracy of a building which resembles a cross between a screened porch on steroids and an International House of Pancakes, I nevertheless am eager to learn where the architect has placed the drive-through window.

A looming, book-shaped building to house the offices of Widener? Please. How trite. In the past 50 years of lackluster "architect collecting," one would have hoped that Harvard had learned a lesson or two about scale, materiality and context in architecture and urban planning. After all, how many Science Centers, William James Halls, Holyoke Centers, Peabody Terraces, Leverett Towers, and Mather Houses does it take to drive these points home? At the end of the day, it just doesn't matter how many prizes an architect has won; when it comes to "architect collecting," it's the ordinary folks who have to live with the appalling results.

Like the self-important boob in section who loves to hear himself talk (and has nothing relevant to contribute), Harvard whines on, arrayed in the trendy threads of yet another architectural monstrosity which only a claque of evangelizing architects--or Harvard bureaucrats--could love.

Christopher D.H. Row

Oct. 19, 2000