In the first decade of the 2000s, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) went on a building spree unlike any in its history. Acting as architectural impresario, the then dean of the university’s School of Architecture + Planning, the late William J. Mitchell, brought in architects like Frank Gehry, Fumihiko Maki, Charles Correa, and Steven Holl, who designed lavish signature buildings throughout the triangular campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, all with the enthusiastic blessing of MIT’s then president Charles M. Vest.
The cost of the program was immense. In addition, there was a lawsuit by MIT against Gehry’s firm for cost overruns, schedule delays, and leakage at the Ray and Maria Stata Center—all of which seemed to make the institute wary of hiring star architects. The MIT News Office says the suit was settled “amicably” in 2010.
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