When Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT opened three years ago, it got a lot of press, especially for its novel appearance. I wrote at the time [record, July 2004, page 61]: “It looks as if it’s about to collapse. Columns tilt at scary angles. Walls teeter, swerve, and collide in random curves and angles. Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal. Everything looks improvised, as if thrown up at the last moment.” The Stata was even pictured in a Doonsbury comic strip, where a character calls it “pretty cool.”
Then everybody forgot about it and moved on. There were fresher shocks to delight us. But the Stata, like any building, is more than a visual show. It’s also a set of interior spaces where people study, play, socialize, and run experiments. The spaces either work or they don’t. You can’t make that judgment until a building has been around for a while.
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