MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

MIT's Building 20: The Magical Incubator Story, Anecdote, or Reminiscence

BLDG 20 TO MoMA

Stanford Anderson
soa@MIT.EDU

The unique project of architecture and urbanism conducted within the Department of Architecture of MIT and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was carried out in Building 20 from the summer of 1966 to January 1967. It appeared as part of the "New Cities" Exhibition, January to March, 1967.

The MIT project was a proposal for a "Socially-Responsible Redevelopment within New York City" -- an urban design for development of unused or underused land and reorganization of public housing sites as a staged contribution to the improvement of conditions in East Harlem and the South Bronx. The Co-Directors were Professors Stanford Anderson, Robert Goodman and Henry Millon.

It was published in The New City: Architecture and Urban Renewal (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1967).

Anecdotally, one recalls the embarassment of the very well tailored and groomed MoMA Curator of Architecture, Arthur Drexler, walking the halls of Building 20.