XI Ti+e I]ARVARD CRrhrsos CAIvIBRIDGE. 1IASS.. \IA1'. 1961

r' The Available at Visual Arts Center Supplemeni SC]|OE1.|HOT'S TORTIGN| May, L963

The Works of Le Corbusier

0euvre complete

Tome I (rer0-re2e) $ r0.45

Tome ll (re2e-re34) $ t0.45

Tome lll (re34-re38) $ t0.45 Tome lV (re38-re46) oul of print

Tome V (re46-re52) $ r3.25 i CONTENTS Tome VI (r952-re57) $ r3.25

Le Corbusier: l9l0 1960 $15.00 Visual Arts and the University: The Case for Creativity Le Corbusier: Towards a new architecture By M. Russin $4.75 loseph and many other tifles. A Center in Search of a Program By Michael S. Gruen The Architectural Harvard By Russell B. Roberts Color Le Corbusier: A Sketch The Concept of the Architect Reproductions Frontiers of Film Making: Visual Studies at the VAC oI By Paal lY, lVillianrr ...... 10 VAC-A Photo Essay by Donald F. Holway and World Famous Albert B, Crenshaw ...... 72 Paintings The Architectural Origins of the Carpenter Center L9 Paper @ . $1.00 C 9 sz], Mounfed @ . $1.98 We also carry a large selection of attractive but inexpensive frames Center Supplement The Visual A,rts to Tbe Haraard as low as $2.49. CzuusoN is published by The Haruard CnIusoN, 14 Plympton Street, Cambridge 38, Mass. Telephones: KI ^4. 7-287L-2. Joseph M. Russin '64, Presid.ent; Ronald l. Cohen '64, Bu.siness Manager;Lawrence S7. Feinberg '64, Visit the Executiue Editor. Eorron FoR THrs Issur: Lawrence \7. Feinberg'64 ]IARIIARD BOOI( STORE BusrNrss EorloR FoR THrs Issup: 1248 MASS. AVE. Herbert H. Denton, Jr.,'65 PnoouctroN MaNacrn: Paticta \7. McCulloch '65 Open Till l0 P.M. Daily Visual Arts and the I.Jniversity:

The Case fo, Creatiuity

By Joseph M. Russin

A RECENT visitor to Harvard ob- fI sslysd that the new Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts "looked out of place." Uncomfortably squeezed be- tween the stately Fogg Museum and the Faculty Club, the Le Corbusier building does seem to be fighting for room and a place in the University. The two buildings that flank the VAC clash with its architecture, but more important, they represent insti- tutions that have long been antithetical to the purposes of the new structure. To the traditionalists of the Fine Arts Department in the Fogg, the Carpenter center is a dangerous innovation which encroaches on the supremacy of the study of art history. For some scholars in the Faculty, creative activity is in- compatible with the academic concerns of a liberal arts college. The VAC was not located between these two antagonistic elements by accident. It was meant to be a chal- lenge to them, and an invitation to the University to advance beyond 19th century concepts of what comprises the liberal arts. Unfortunately, this invitation has been only partially and in some ways reluctantly accepled; the challenge remains. Soon after his appointment to the presidency, Mr. Pusey recognized that Harvard painfully lacked creative activity. Three years later an Over- seers Cornmittee chaired by John Nich- olas Brown '22, arliculated this view and strongly urged the University to provide both intellectual and finanqial encouragement for the creative arts. Partially as a result of this report, and of Mr. Pusey's insistence, the Loeb Drama Center and the Carpenter Cen- ter were commissioned. But while Student u,or2s on project in Arc Sci 31, Deilgn Fund.amentals. (Continued on Page 1.5) A Center in Search of a, Program

By Michaol S, Qruen m HE Carpenter Center for the Vis- since opinions cover a broad spectrum. visual arts is appreciation, "the ulti- I ual Arts offers very little novelty At the extremes, thotrgh, one. finds mate percoption of quality," the Brown il its program*only two unprece- those who believe that Harvard is a committee wrote. "To this end there dented new courses. Yet, in its con- purely academic institution where are many avenues of approach. For cept, it is revolutionary and may well studies of visual matters should extend some, history of art is the way. Others be revolutionary in its effect. Accord- only to art history and the scientific find their solutions in the theory of ing to its coordinator of studies, Ed- investigation of the cognitive process, art, in the analysis of color and the uard F. Sekler, the center is intended opposed by those who believe that the formulae of design. Still others need to overcome "visual illiteracy" at llat University gains a great deal by hav- the practice of art, the actual manual vard, to make "visual experience, ing a number of people around who process of painting and drawing, of visual exploration, and visual creation are interested almost exclusively in rnaking sculpture and of constructing share in education a relevant place artistic creation. model buildings and fashioning decors rvith verbal experience, investigation, President Pusey opened the issue for the theatre. and creation." shortly after his arrival at the Univer- "It is the conclusion of the committee, Because of its central position in the sity by appointing a committee headed after hearing many points of view and University and because of its physical by John Nicholas Brown '22, a former giving many hours to discussion, that impressiveness, the Center promises to Overseer, to study the current situation all three methods of approach are locus considerable attention on the in the visual arts and recommend valid, and that for most people no importance of visual communications. changes. The committee's report, re- one method is enough." But finding out how this attention will turned in 1956, expressed the convic- The curriculum for next year will be used-how the Visual Arts Center tion that although the study of visual include courses that exemplify each *'i11 operate-is about as difficult as communications was of the utmost im- of these methods and combine them finding out last spring, when the Center portance, Harvard was severely de- to various extents. In addition, it will rvas still a hole in the ground, what it ficient in the area. include at least one course in a fourth rvould look like. At that time, repre- fT went on to make some specific category, to be called visual com- sentatives from most College publica- r proposals that must have brought munications, which will concentrate tions ran through the usual gamut ot about a severe case of shudders in any primarily on the visual aspects of Administration and School of Design number of Faculty members. Its prim- learning. sources and, receiving no concrete ary administrative recommendationwas Only three of these methods will be information, gave up. that the Fine Arts Department (to be followed in the VAC itself-visual The editor of one journal, however, called History of Art), the Departrnent communications, design theory, and decided as a last hope to ask the fore- of Design, and the Harvard theatre, creative activity. These three ap- man of the work crew how the build- should be subordinated to a Division proaches will go by the general name, ing would look. The foreman just of the Visual Arts. As Sidney Freed- visual studies, and will merge to some shrugged and answered, "Damned if I berg, current chairman of the Fine Arts unascertainable extent. Dean Arthur know. First time I ever built a build- Department, has expressed it, the Fac- D. Trottenberg, chairman of the Execu- ing with no plans." ulty "brayed this suggestion." The tive Committee of the larger Com- Today, if one asks those involved committee also recommended that stu- mittee on the Practice of Visual Arts, with the Center what the approach of dents in the History of Art be required (C.P.V.A.), goes so far as to say that the Center is and what kind of courses to take at least one course in the history the three cannot be separated. will be taught there, one comes away of design and participate in "labs" The history of art (exclusive of with a composite response which, appended to History of Art courses in architecture) continues to be taught when shorn of the verbal ornamenta- which, i la Wellesley, students would by the Fine Arts Department which, tion, virtually duplicates the foreman's experiment in various media to learn as Freedberg emphasizes, is entirely reply. The fact is that no one knows the problems faced by artists they were distinct from the Visual Arts Center where the Visual Arts Center is headed. studying. Perhaps the most revolution- and has no direct liason with it. This There are still no clear plans and it ary suggestion however mildly and insistence on the separation of the seems unlikely that there will be any equivocally expressed was that the Fine Arts Department from the Center for a long time. University might play some role in can be explained by what Freedberg The concentrated thought over the turning out an occasional professional considers to be a consensus of opinion last nine years on the subject of the artist. in the Fine Arts Department that visual arts at Harvard has prompted It is the committee's basic assump- "courses in practice or involving theo- a sometimes rather bitter controversy tion, though, that bears greatest rele- retical considerations of design are not in the University. One cannot simply vance to the Visual Arts Center as it acttally necessary to the full under- point out two sides to this disPute now stands. The goal of study in the standing of the history of art or indeed PAGE 4 THE HARV.ARD CR'MSON MAY. 1963 the nature artistic of design. They may presentation in the design of instruc. have an obvious interest in the new a help be but they are not a necessity. tion." venture." Mention has been made Our attitude is that of European uni- In addition to the proposed work- even of the possibility of working with versities, that the history of art is an shop courses already mentioned, the television channel 2, Boston's educa- intellectual discipline." The Fine Arts Arch. Sci. Department's flve courses in tional TV station. Department, therefore, will not in any studio practice (Arch. Sci. 20, 2L,30, The growth of the VAC will un- way encourage its concentrators to 31, and 40) will be taught from now doubtedly involve new courses and new take courses offerod in the VAC, but on in the Visual Arts Center. These activities. There is no way of know- will consider them "an option that is courses teach such things as texture, ing what future courses may form or always open for the student." color, form, and manual dexterity, whether any particular approach to If Prof. Freedberg's statements ex- through practice and experiment. visual studies may come to receive press the opinion of a majority of the According to Dean Trottenberg, the greater emphasis. The future activi- Fine Arts Departrnent, they by no program as outlined above is only a ties that are spoken of include fairly means represent the opinion of all the beginning. "We aren't springing into definite plans foi an extensive pro- Department's members. Three mem- existence full-blown," says Trottenberg. gram of exhibitions in the third floor bers, in fact, belong to the C.P.V.A. "We expect to grow into many areas." exhibit room and strong hopes for a (Professors Coolidge, Ackerman and Just where this growth will occur is series of visiting artists who might use Slive) and one (Prof. Slive) is a mem- anyone's guess. It may come about in the flfth-floor studio. The visiting ber of its Executive Committee. the form of links with other depart- artists would normally remain at the ments. Center for six months a year, The Faculty will meet to approve to and would quite likely be permitted ar- new courses on May 27, blut there is Dean Franklin L. Ford considers it to range courses and activities little doubt that courses in drawing, "possible" that visual studies courses largely at their own discretion. As envisioned graphics, f,lming, still photography, and may eventually ceunt for concentration by Ford, the program individual supervised studies will go in Fine Arts, thus encouraging Fine for visiting artists might include artists from wide through. In the individual studies Arts concentraton to take cours^s at a variety of areas from painting s6g1gs-"\/ls Stud's" equivalent to tu- the VAC. Dean Trottenberg expresses to frlm- ing and television. torial-the student might conceivably enthusiasm about the possibility of work in anything frorn pure theory to using the facilities of the VAC for The Committee on the Practice of creative activity as much divorced from scenery and lighting design for the the Visual Arts has agreed that extra- theory as possible without completely Loeb Theater. curricular work should generally be eliminating the mind. The core course will be the already existing Arch. Sci. 124, a half course on design in the visual arts which in- cludes study of design theory, some study of the cognitive process as it applies to vision, and development of students' aesthetic sensitivity. Taught by Sekler, and guest lecturers, it may be supplemented next year by a com- plementary half course, Arch. Sci. 125. The other existing theoretical course, Prof. I. A. Richards' Vis. Com. 105, taught for the first time this semester, places somewhat greater emphasis on variations in perception than on aes- thetics. As Richards describes it, the course considers "illusion, individual differences in visual imagery, appre: hension and interpretation; relative legibility and intelligibility of visual presentations; cultural differences in Sculptor MirAo Basad.ella, Director_ of the Design worhsbop, teaches detign courtes conventions of representation and dec- al lhe Center and. has a ttudio on the f.fth-leuel. oration, and in the articulation of space; str'uctural analysis of signfields; And Sekler states that, in view of discouraged at the Center, yet it is codification; the dimensions of mean- the VAC's interest in furthering the possible that some supervised individ- ing; visual analogues to logic, grammar visual arts as a fireans of communica- uals and groups may work at the VAC. and rhetoric; visual metonymy and tion, "the departments of anthropology, Several people, particularly Dean Trot- metaphor; symbolization and iconog- government, psychology, social rela- tenberg, Sekler, and Robert G. Gard- raphy; valuation; tradition; distinctive tions, the graduate school of educa- ner, Coordinator of the Light and characters of mass media (magazine, tion, and the centers for urban and Communications Center, are anxious radio, film, TV); the roles of visual cognitive studies may be expected to to start a collection of historically im- MAY, t963 THE HARV.ARD CRIMSOI' PAGE 5 portant photographs and exhibit them so much on policy (apparently rather In designing tle building, a major regularly. flexible) as on the number of especial- effort was made both to bring students Growth could conceivably evetr come ly creative students who work at the from various courses within the build- in the form of the establishment of a Center dnd on how much time they ing into contact with each other, and to concentration in visual arts. Accord- can spend at their art. draw people from other parts of the ing to Dean Ford, this suggestion "has Clarity of purpose is obviously not University into contact with the actir.i- come up but is not being pushed strong- one of the centers fuallmarks. Some ty of the VAC. ly." He notes, however, that it "will degree of uncertainty in a new pro- To those ends, Corbusier made the no doubt come up more often in the gram of such broad scope as the Visual building singularly inviting from tle future." Arts Center is, of course, inevitable. outside by establishing a close inter- But this uncertainty might grow Perhaps an ever bigger question that relationship between inside and out: into aimlessness represents a than the direction in which the VAC complete the ramp, for example, arrives at the danger which, hopefully, the C.P.V.A. will grow is the question of how much top of a platform which seems to be will carefully guard against. inside but is actually unenclosed; the the artist, as opposed to the Person The building itself was designed to ground gives taking creative courses for the sake of outdoor patio on the level accomodate the uncertain intentions as improving his understanding of visual the impression of being enclosed; and to how it would be used. In fact, saYs inside a experiences, will be encouraged. Ifere, the bay windows give those Sekler, "the program for the Visual statements by people involved with the close connection with the outside. He Center have not been altogether con- also created alarge lobby and patio on sistent. the ground level with benches u-here people can .1eet. Peter D. Schultz, executive secretary adr.aD- of the Center, emphasizes the intellect- Whatever its architectural ual content of the courses, which he tages, the building unquestionably also that feels are primarily concerned with the has several drawbacks. The fact "analysis of elements of visual or the University was unwilling to spend artistic experience." The program, he $ 10,000 or so for heating coils says, should "teach students to learn underneath the ramp, makes the ramp to see rather than to become great useless for some four months of winter artists." each year. The colors on many of the brise-soleil, however attractive, mod$' Sekler, on the other hand, suggests the light in several areas of the studios that one aspect of the program will be making working in color extremel-v "creative activity" for its own sake. difficult. And, for those who find the In his statement on the Program of building intriguing in such respects as Visual Studies, he writes: "Naturally its constanfly changing appearance as the same search for quality applies in one walks past it, there are probably visual studies that prevails in scholarly as many who feel that its style fits scientific fields throughout the and poorly with the buildings around iL their highest levels Universif. On that the third floor studio looks from these studies may reach the domain of Eduard. SeAler Oxford St. like a hunchback on stils. art, but it seems a wise humility not to or that the large lecture room resembles set out on a program that is restricted Arts Center rests partly on the inspira- a multi-colored gas chamber. to the highest possible achievement tion aroused by the building. Le Cor- only. Instead creative activity will be busier's commission was to create an If the aesthetic complaints are signs encouraged in the maniPulation of inspirational building." The University of poor taste, perhaps the activities of forms to an end without asPiring to made very few precise requirements. the Center will educate their adherents the production of works of art- Among them were that studio space be out of their current views. As to the though hopefully not excluding that flexible so that it could be used for complaints regarding usefulness, Sekler possibility." other purposes or partioned off into ticalities are the price you pay for Dean Ford seems to have rather smaUer areas, that there be a minimum says quite simply that "certain imprac- genius." strong hopes that particularly talented of offices in order, as Sekler says, to having the work of a student artists will work direct$ with avoid the atmosphere of a 'obureau- the artists in residence. He also states cratic hydrocephalus," and that there that the studio courses will uot be be a multipurpose large lecture hall primarily service courses for academic adjoining the light and communications Gropius Exhibition frelds, though this may be of "inciden- area. tal value." They will be courses for Other facilities that have been in- An exhibition honoring architect people "interested inthe creative arts." cluded in the Center include, in addi- Waltert Gropius on his 80th birthday An indication of this policy is the fact tion to three large studios for architect- will be on display at the Loeb Drama that the man nominated for appoint- ural courses, a room on the second Center until June 15. The exhibition ment to teach drawing and graphics is floor containing kilns, molds,,etc., for was organized by the Bauhaus Archive, not just a teacher but an active artist. experimental use, and half of the fourth Darmstadt, and was brought to the lt seems likely that the degree of em- floor whose use has not been desig- United States by the West German phasis on creativity may depend not nated. Consul in Boston. The Architectural Harvard

By Russell B. Roberts

lrl NE of Harvard's finest collections, fluence to appear in cotronial Cambridge U ;1, most often seen but most fre- was Apthorp House, a grand scale quently overlooked, is the body of arti- dwelling of 1760. It was built as a facts in which the University lives home fof East Apthorp, an Anglican its museum of architecture. Le Cor-- missionary, and its haughty grandeur busier should be pleased that his new- infuriated the Congregationalists who est construction is also the latest entry then populated most of Cambridge and rn a fairly distinguished 1ot of buildings. all of Harvard. They had worried for Extant Harvard structures cover a some time about the prospects of an time of 243 years and include at least Anglican bishopric being established one piece from virtually every impor- in their midst and concluded that Ap- tant period of American architecture. thorp's mansion was to be the "Bishop's In this respect the University is very Palace" and Apthorp the first,bishop. fortunate: there are remarkably few The house was easily imposing communities in the United States with enough to induce such speculation. It architectural quality and diversity stood at the top of a crest overlooking matching Harvard's. the Charles River with a large expanse The best and most nearly complete of ground stretching before it and set in the Harvard architecture collec- somehow had a way of appearing inor- tion is the earliest, that of the colonial dinatoly pompous whenever a Congre- period. The University owns eight 18th gationalist should happen by. The neat century structures, half of them built rows of Ionic pilasters and windows, especially for academic duties and half the classical doorway and the stately of them acquired after long service as scale of the house, contributed to its private Cambridge residences. attractiveness. Now the Master's Resi- Of these earliest buildings, the real dence at Adams House, the building masterpieces are Massachusetts Hall, has lost its view of the river and most of Holden Chapel, and Apthorp House. its ground but its handsome interior Massachusetts Hall, one of Harvard's and facade remain intact. truly prize possessions, is the oldest The design of Apthorp House was College building, constructed in 1720. probably the work of Charles Ward Few University buildings of equal merit Apthorp, the minister's brother and a have been erected since. The classic relatively competent gentleman builder. simplicity of its Georgian lines, the ex- Like most educated men of his time, cellence of its brickwork, and its im- Apthorp considered a knowledge o{ maculate proportions are impossible to the orders of architecture an essential better. Holden Chapel, designed by an part of learning and had mastered the unknown Englishman, is a very beauti- subject well. He was part of the tra- ful little building, which manages to dition of gentleman architects, who look modest and aristocratic at the provided Harvard with the schemes for same time. Its synetrical simplicity is all its earliest buildings. much like that of Massachusetts Hall, Elmwood, a majestic wooden house the only flourish being its ornately which is now the official horne of the carved pediments which bear the arms Dean of the Faculty, is an achievement of Samuel Holden, a London merchant of another good but unknown 18th and donor of the chapel. The interior of century amateur and it is almost as fine the building has undergone several a place as Apthorp House. Harvard thorough remodelings and lacks the ele- Hall was built in 1766 after plans gance of the original plan but the sketched by Sir Francis Bernard, the Georgian proportions of the Chapel are colonial governor of Massachusetts who still noticeable and still attractive. fancied himself a most proper builder. The first bit of marked domestic af- He was rather successful with his Har- MAY, 1953 THE HARVARD CRTMSO'{ PAGE 7 vard construction which, until it was vard's most impressive room, now the this period who designed for Harvard badly altered in the 19th century, had setting for meetings of the Faculty and a building which can justly be consid- been a pleasantly attractive edifice; it the Board of Overseers. ered among the most important in the could be attractive again, and ought to It is possible that the University United States. be restored. owns a third and "lost" Bulfinch, one Henry Hobson Richardson's Sever Wadsworth House and Hicks lIouse, of the large number of buildings which Hall, flnished in 1880, was a great in- the other two colonial domestic struc- were designed by the architect but fluence on the changing styles of the tures belonging to the University, are never credited to him. Fay House at time and eventually became a major typical works of gentlemen designers Radcliffe, built during the time when step toward the 20th century aad mod- and are very representative of the 18th century. Only one Harvard building of this period, Hollis Hall, has been attributed to a professional builder and even that is uncertain. Hollis was de- signed with polish and excellently con- structed but still might be the handi- work of a well-versed amateur. Charles Bulfinch, eventually to be- come one of America's most honored architects, was a gentleman builder be- fore he was a professional. He came from a respectable Boston family which had cultivated in him an interest in all the proper disciplines and especially in architecture. He attended to this in- terest'as an undergraduate at Harvard, Class of 1781, and on a trip to Europe after leaving college. His eminence as an architect came surprisingly early in his career, due mostly to the greatness of his design for the Massachusetts State House, one of his f,rst commis- sions. Bulfinch's work for Harvard included the original plan for arrangement of buildings in the Yard, Stoughton Hall Holden Cbapel which he designed as a mate for Hollis, and University Hall, one of Bulfinch's Bulfinch was particular$ interested in ern architectute. This was the building best and one of Harvard's best. This is houses, possesses the characteristics of in which Richardson reached the ulti- a building which commands the Yard Bulfinch's style but unfortunately has mate maturity of his art, in general de- with authority and flair, is dignified and lost the credentials of its origin. sign, in construction, and in the mi- also very handsome. After Bulfinch, Harvard erected no nute details of ornamentation. Preserv- When University Hall was first import'ant buildings until the late 19th ing the massive boldness which was erected, a large and ungainly portico century, a time of professional archi- characteristic of Richardson and his was constructed across the front, ap- tects and gaudy edffices. Among the Romanesque school, Sever achieved a parently Harvard's addition to Bul- most prominent extravaganzas of this new simplicity which was to be widely finch's original plan, but this was later time were Matthews, Weld, and Grays copied. The deep Syrian archway of the removed and the exterior elevations in the Yard and Claverly and Randolph front side gave the building a remark- seem to be now as the architect in- on the Gold Coast. The excesses of able sense of security; the brick carv- tended. Gone also is "University Min- these combinations of Gothic and Ja- ing in the cornices, the chimneys, and or," a row of out houses which stood cobean design, if unpleasant to see, are the friezes, is some of the best ever behind the main structure for many reminiscent of the age. done in this contry; and the inclina- of the building to harmonize with years. Only Memorial Hall surpasses the tion the older works in the Yard without The inside of the Chelmsford gran- standard garishness of Victorian taste. sacrificing a distinct style its own, ite building has been drastically rebuilt Guides on one of the sight-seeing tours of is something few architects of the late on several occasions and only a small now conducted through Cambridge century ever understood. part of the original finish remains. The claim that Harvard wanted so much to 19th dining rooms and two kitchens included erect a great and lasting tribute to its Richardson also designod Austin at the start are gone, leaving only the Civil War dead that University officials Hal1, a building more characteristic of circular ports through which food was asked every leading architect in Amer- his work but neither as important nor once passed frorn room to room. The ica to contribute one detail to such a as good as Sever. one place in the building which still re- monument, put them all together and In the 19th century, Harvard build- tains a solid Bulfinch flavor is the old erected Memorial Hall. ers had followed contemporary trends second floor chapel, probably Har- But there was one great architect of on some occasions and completely re- PAGE 8 THE HARV.4RD CRIMSON MAY, 1963 shaped them on others. In the first by a great artist, brings to Harvard and the creation of beauty and too of- major period of constnrction in the to the United States the results of some ten economics or tastelessness have 20th century, both of these practices of the best experimentation in the his- blotched the landscape with ugly piles; were abandoned in favor of an outright tory of architecture. A living dramati- but the University has been generally return to classical forms. This appar- zation of the creative arts, for all its fortunate in its assemblage of ediflces. ently was done chiefly to suit the wishes functional flaws, it is a good and suit- A path extended in an easterly direction of President A. Lawrence Lowell, a able home for the study of vision and from Johnston Gate, passes Massachu- man of reactionary tastes, who selected creation. There are quirks of design setts Hall, University HaIl, Sever Hall, a Georgian style for the buildings of which are nervous and unappealing, of and the Visual Arts Center, Harvard's his House System in the 1930's. In course, and there are people who don't best buildings representing the most making such a choice, Lowell was fol- like it for example, the classics pro- interesting periods in American archi- lowing the theories of gentleman archi- fessor -who compared it to two grand tecture. Such a path wanders through tect, Thomas Jefferson, who had advo- pianos copulating. But there is no the middle of a huge and amusing col- cated the use of classic styles for the bolder building at Haward,; no other lection of buildings. official buildings of the new American can grab a man's attention and hold it Besides architectural republic, to give the government a look for so long a time as the Arts Center quality and di- versity, those buildings have places in of stability and purpose, a transfer of does. It serves its special purpose as history and personalities of their own. aged nobility to the institutions of a few other buildings can: it excites a people young nation. Lowell wanted that same new interest in the creative arts. The who lived in them and the established look for his new Houses character the buildings managed to de- Sometimes the University builders and it was natural that he and the velop for themselves add a great deal have been more concerned with the University's architects selected a sturdy to Harvard architecture. The com- accumulation of indoor space than with New England design. munity of buildings at Harvard have always meant more to the community The pseudo-Georgian look, how- of men than mere roofs and walls. ever, was not restricted to the Houses. Virtually everything built in the Lowell years, including the fndoor Athletic Building, surely the world's largest Georgian cube, was designed in this style. Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Le Corbusier Abbott, then the regular University ar* chitects, pandered to their ancestors more than to art; but if not creative, at Paintings Gt VAC least their buildings are comfortable and outwardly attractive. An extensive collection of Le Cor- The 20th century is leaving the Uni- busier's paintings, drawings, and prints versity another legacy which is neither will be exhibited in the Carpenter Cen- comfortable nor attractive. Leverett ter for the Visual Arts from June 1 to Towers, the still growing Holyoke Cen- August 15. The exhibition, showing ter, and the projected married students Le Corbusier as a painter and graphic housing complex are part of this legacy; artist, will include ten paintings, 12 they may be personally hideous but in watercolors and drawings, 55 prints, the future they will be an important one tapestry, and a selection of books. part of Harvard's architectural muse- um. They represent the New Vic- Authorized by Le Corbusier and as- toriana, a school based on bald gim- sembled exclusively from U. S. collec- mickry, loud primary colors, starkness tions, the exhibition is presented in con- and bigness, which is responsible for a junction with a selection of photogra- good measure of contemporary Ameri- phic panels designed by the architect can building. and executed at the Colegio Oflcial de Arquitectos, Fortunately, Harvard also has some Barcelona, Spain. highly original pieces of sensible mod- The scope of the exhibition is de- ern design. Walter Gropius' Harkness fined by an early "Still Life," signed Commons (1950) is regarded as one "Jeanneret" and dated 1920, eight years of his best works. In it his design before the pseudonym of Le Corbusier gained a more fluid appearance than appeared. Reflecting the Cubists' care- ever before and it became a great in- fully controlled forms, precise edges fluence on the building of its decade. and muted palette, this and other early The new Geology Laboratory, designed works contrast markedly with the lin- by Gropius' firm, the Architects Col- ear) brilliantly oolored "Taureaux,, laborative, is another splendid, orig- paintings of the 1950's. The most re- inal building and Hugh Stubbins'Loeb cent work displayed is an Aubusson Drama Center is a third. tapestry "La licome passe sur la mer,, The Visual Arts Center, a good work Seoer Hall completed in 1962. Le Corbusier: A Sketch rfiHE Visual Arts Center, flnanced by a $1.5 million gift -f to the Program for by Alfred St. Vrain Carpenter '05 and the late Mrs. Carpenter, of Medford, Ore., is the f,rst Le Corbusier building in North America. It follows a series of buildings to house educational and religious activities which the French architect, now 76, has designed elsewhere in the world during the last few years. These include dormitories for Brazilian and Swiss students in University City outside Paris, a new museum of modern French art in Tokyo, the pilgrimage church of Notre Dame de Ronchamp, and a convent for the Dominican Order at La Tourette, near Lyon. During the last ten years Le Corbusier has also desiped Chandigarh, the new capital city of India's Punjab province, and large superblock apartmeilt houses in Marseilles and Nantes; these three projects embody the radical concepts of the Architect city planning which Le Corbusier first developed in the Concepts of 1920s. in brief, Le Corbusier advocated "cities of tomorrow'' D, ETWEEN 1902 and 1917 Le Corbusigr was, in his composed of immense, latgely self-contained apartment I) nolir" country closely involved in the birth and organi- blocks, widely spaced in open parks. Bands of superhigh- zation ol a special educational section lor architectural evo- ways would weave about these superblocks, while a net\\ork lution. Thanks to an exceptional teacher, young and. full of smaller roads and pedestrian walks would connect ildi- ol initiatives (L'Eplattenier), an educational center limited vidual units. to 20 students, men and women, existed diring 15 years This outline took form in Chandigarh in the early 1950s, exciting the interest and hostility of people. In one single which the Indian government commissioned Le Corbusier place were taught drawing or color, volurne, modeling, to design as a state capital replacing Lahore which India etc. . . , construction (furniture, etc.), jewellery, embroid- lost to Pakistan in the division of the Punjab in 1947. The ery, etc, etc. . . Le Corbusier began with a burin in his new city already has 150,000 residents, and will expand later hand and the goldsmith's hammer and chisel, realizing, to a half million. though very young, excellent works. He made his first Its central units are residential sectors of approximately' house when he was seventeen and a haff without ever hav- 240 acres, designed to house 15,000 people. Each is an ing studied architectttre. This house subjected to the in- inward-looking, self-contained neighborhood, with its oxn business center. The city can be expanded almost indefin- fluence ol that time and o,f his teacher L'Eplattenier, gave an opening to architectural decorations: "sgrafiiti," mural itely by adding new sectors; yet, growth will not lead to depersonalization, Le Corbusier believes, for each sector painting, furniture, wrought iron, embossing, etc. . . . Dur- ing the following years this school undertook building forms a coherent community. The same concept of a self-contained community is dis- works (decorative, of course, since it was the lashion at played d'Habitation, the Marseilles apartment that time): metal, stone, mosaic, stained-glass window (con- in Unite block completed in 1952. At the opening ceremony in cert-room, church, lragment of a public edifice, etc. . .). that year Le Corbusier described the superblock One day everything collapsed before the rivalry and the October of as "the first manifestation of an environment suited to mod- hatred which had roused the old school against this New ern life." Section. The evolution oJ men, the manifestation ol indi- Marseilles's Unite d'Habitation is a massive structure of vidualities, the divergences, overcame the enthusiasm. finally reinforced concrete, 450 feet long, 70 feet deep, and 180 And the whole concern collapsed! feet high, containing 337 apartments for a population of From this experience Le Corbusier has kept the in- first 1,600. Designed as a piece of gigantic sculpture, it stands stinct of the indispensible, practical, and beneficient fatidical, apart in at lly2-acre park. Its seventh and eighth floors relations beween the hand and the head. The rupture o'l form an interior street flanked by small shops. On the roof this collaboration of the hand and the head brought by the is a garden with a playground for children and a wandering and the bureacracy has little by little mechqnism lomented track for running. society which would be on the decline no a monstrous it Despite Le Corbusier's grand conception, the Unite d'Ha- reaction interfered. bitation has been only a partial success. The apartments, has therefore in Le 's initiative lound arranged as duplexes, have l5-foot-high living rooms open- ground the Corbusier a which is naturally favorable to ing on four-foot-deep balconies. But, the bedrooms are constitute the present pro- implantation ol the ideas which very narrow-only 13-feet for the master bedroom and a gram o! this University. scant six-feet for children's rooms and both kitchens and Paris, ]une 8, 1960 LB ConsusrBn (Continued on Page 24) Frontiers of FiLm Making -Visual Studies at the VAC

By Paul W. Williams : TN the basement of the Carpenter I C"nt.. for the Visual Arti, the University will soon launch a unique program on the frontiers of cinema- tography. Robert G. Gardner '48, the anthropologist-fllm maker who is coordinator of the project, believes it will fill the void in experimentation left by a commercial industry that fears the untried. For, while it develops the visual "literacy" of its students, the Light and Communications program hopes to advance the film making art. For example, Visual Studies 146, a half-course to be offered next spring, will undertake pioneering work in ani- mated fllms of a distinctly non-Walt Disney type. In the course, Donald, Huey, and the others will be replaced by stick figures and geometric forms, historical busts and mushroom cloud ROtsERT GARDNER: Program Coordinator silhouettes. The basic tool for making the films will be the animation ma- chine which relates standard two-di- lished by Gardner. But the major D OBERT G. GARDNER'48, coor- mensional figures to each other product- the expedition is two- .fL dinator of the Visual Studies pro- of a through motion. gram in photography, is one of the na- hour documentary of tribal warfare tion's most important makers of an- and revenge entitled Dead Birds. Gard- Disney themes will be replaced by thropological flkns. With the backing ner is now completing the editing and education in Visual Studies 146 with of the Peabody Museum's Film StudY sound track. simple cartoons teaching geometry or photographs Center, Gardner assisted John Marshall Gardner entered anthropological film successions of still and who directed "The Hunters," a now- making n 1949. After reading Ruth documents teaching history. Gardner possibilities classic study of bushmen in Southwest Benedict's Patterns ol Culture, he made believes that the of this Africa. "aL honest little documentary" on sort of educational fllm making, which so far has been tried only occasion- The which shows bushmen Benedicts's Kwakiutl Indians. film, ally as in Bell Telephone's "Our Mr. hunting a girafie, was praised bY the Trying to earn a living as a film Sun," are extremely important. late Harvard anthropologist Clyde maker, Gardner produced one highly 'fhe Kluckhohn, as "the most remarkable successful short on the artist Mark animation work of Vis Stud 146 be more advanced com- anthropological filrn I have ever seen. Tobey, but he was unsatisf.ed with his will the plement It takes the viewer as close as he can work. Returning to Harvard, he re- of a fall course, Vis Stud 145, fundamental ever hope to get to the life of the Stone ceived a master's degtee in anthropol- that will teach the tech- Age." ogy in 1953. Two years later he joined niques of movie making. However, In 1961 Gardner led an exPedition Brew and Marshall in founding the while teaching the basic roles of light, to New Guinea to study and photo- Peabody Film Study Center: Soon af- motion, time, space, and form, the graph the Willigiman-Wallalua na- terwards he assisted with "The Hunt- course will also give a history of the which, says Gardner, tives. It was after this expedition that ers" and initiated a graduate seminar movies will "put proper Michael Rockefeller '60 lost his life on anthropological film making. the study in its humanitarian addition, Gardner hopes while collecting art for the Museum of Throughout his work Gardner has context." In professional film Primitive Art. given attention to artistic flair as well to bring outstanding as guest in The expedition produced material as to technical competence. He is ap- makers lecturers tle course. for two books, one by Peter Matthies- plying this approach to the Visual The emphasis on the "humanitarian sen end anofher soofl to be oub- Studies Drosram. context" of the movies reflects Gard- - MAY, I953 THE HARV,ARD CRIMSO'II PAGE I I Classes will be four hours long and Of course, the prospect of experi- will meet early il the week. This ar- mental photography courses with- rangement will provide time for ex- out flnals and given in the -Le Cor- tended instruction and full discussion, busier building will probably bring while giving students the rest of the a deluge of applicants- to Visual Stud- week to plan and execute their own ies. Yet, Gardner insists that the film projects. In class, students will program will be no gut. It "rvill per- screen and evaluate their own fllms mit no dodging," he declares, "nor along with those from the Center's will it depart from the high perform- film library. There will be no final ex- ance standards of the University." iuninalion. Still, the number of applicants will In addition to the cinema courses, probably exceed that which can be the program in visual studies plans to accommodated by the Center's limited offer two half courses in still photog- space and materials. raphy, Visual Studies 140 and 141. In over-subscribed courses priority T'aught by professional photographer, for enrollment will probably be given Len Gittleman, these courses, like the to sophomores and juniors; seniors cinema courses, will stress the funda- will not be able to develop any of the mentals of photography and "opening skills learned in the basic course and students eyes to the use of the me- freshmen can wait. Those who have dium." shown some previous interest in the The mechanics of the still photog- field without gaining expertise will also raphy courses parallel those of the get priority. Overnight afficionados rviil cinema courses. Vis Stud 140, the fall be suspect. Synchronizing toand. track and. film. course, will supply four by flve cam- It seems certain that extra-curricu- eras and black and white fil:n while lar photographic activities will not Vis Stud 141 will also utilize minia- take place in the Carpenter Center. ner's own approach to cinema and ture (35mm) cameras and color fiIm. There are not enough facilities to ac- education. Leader of an expedition to Students will be permitted to use their commodate anything besides course the New Guinea hinterlands last year, orvn equipment if suitable. A fresh- work. Gardner says, however, that he Gardner has been interested in movies man scminar irr still photography is would like to develop a photographic as a means and of recording interpret- also planned. pxogram in the Houses .- which aI- ing life, especially in primitive cul- All the photographic courses will be ready have good darkrooms rvith tures. A quasi-anthropotrogical docu- taught in the Carpenter Center's su- guidance and instruction from -the Vis- mentary approach to reality will be perb basement complex of editing ual Studies stafl. But there is no source basic to his undergraduate courses. rooms, dark rooms, viewing rooms, yet to supply students with movie- Drama and screen play, strictly animation studios, and sound syn- making equipment, and little work speaking, will not be studied in Vis- chronization closets. The Center also seems to have been done so far on de- ual Studies 145. Rather, students will has a film library and small movie veloping the extra-curricular progrrm. produce short subjects of about five studio. (Continued on Page 14) minutes in length. Assignments early general in the term will be on very SticA f.gure anirnation. themes. Equipped with camera and re- corder, students will be asked to por- tray, for instance, "whiteness," "wet- ' ness," or "circularity," Gardner hopes students will use their equipment cre- atively while learning the basic tech- niques of the craft. Although longer films are largely out of the question, the mastery students will gain of the sequence should equip them to pro- duce longer works orttside the course. Although plans are not definite, stu- dents in Visual Studies 145 will prob- ably be provided with eight millimeter cameras and necessary lenses. More advanced courses will work with 16 and 35 millimeter film. All processing over 30 frames (which is about two seconds viewing time) will be done commercially. However, the cost of the course probably will not exceed that of most laboratory courses. PAGE 12 THE HARVARD CR'MSON MAY. 1963

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Pl:otographs by Donal F. Holway and Albert B. Crenshaw MAY. 1963 THE HARV.ARD CRIMSON PAGE 13 PAGE T4 THE HARV,/IRD CRIMSON MAY, 1963

PHOTOGRAPHY (Continued trom Page 7t) Complimenfs of Although the Visual Arts Center has made possible Harvard's first large-scale program in photography, THE Compliments ol Gardner and J. O. Brew, Director of the Peabody Museum, have been con- WATERPROOFING ducting a smaller such program on the Warren Brothers graduate level for the last few years. Next spring it will be given as COMPANY Anthropology 2I4, "Representation- al Methods in Anthropology." A1- Roads Company though the Visual Studies courses will depart from the strictly anthropologi- II9 CHANDLER STREET cal concerns of Anthro 214, the grad- uate seminar has already served as a BOSTON, MASS. @ prototype for them. Composed mainly of design and an- thropology students, the seminar at- @ tempts, in the words of the catalogue, "to apprise students of the value and 33 Camhridge Parkway use of pictures and sound in anthro- Serving Horvard's. Building pological research and teaching and to provide them with a substantial tech- Progrom Cambridge, Illlassarhusetts nical grounding in the use of cameras for over and recorders." In practical terms, this means making film shorts, one of 50 yeors which "Orange and Blue" is being shown across the country with Ingmar Bergman's "Through a Glass Darkly." Visual Studies 145 will use many of the same techniques of filming and record- ing. The approach of Gardner and Brew in their graduate seminar has been to CAIIIBRIDGE CEIIIENT STONE COIV|PANY improve film making while teaching their students. This will carry over to the Visual Studies program. I.NCORPORATED "We want to find out more about the medium while teaching it," Gard- ner emphasizes. "All our films will be made for this purpose-we 'want to ts open a new rvindow on reality."

Neuman f{amed MO.SAI ARCHITECTURAL SLABS Art fnstructor Robert S. Neuman, a painter and PRECAST CONCRETE UNITS draughtsman now teaching at Brown University, has been named Instructor in Drawing for the Carpenter Center. co) He will give an undergraduate course t in descriptive drawing and will help coordinate extra-curricular activities in the Houses with work in the Center. Neuman's paintings are in the col- 156 HNCoTN ST. AttsToN 34, MASS. lections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Institute, and the San Francisco Museum of Art. He has studied in California, and at Stuttgart and Barcelona. MAY, 1963 THE HARV.ARD CRIMSON PAGE 15 it is no more "professional" than those subjects, and no more vocational than a science course with labs. The Case for Creativity Although the interest of the uni- (Continued lrom Page 2) versity in creative arts may be evident to some, the desire of the creative artist to be in a university has raised prob- pressures emphasized the need Harvard was willing to spend the national lems. Many art instructors claim they money to construct these buildings, it for its achievements. teach only to support their families, has so far been singularly stubborn Today it would be ridiculous to pro- that their art is adversely affected by to about deciding realistically what is pose that only the history of science loss of creative time. And for the art be done with them. belong in the university. Science is student, the conflict of time between As with the Loeb, the future of the Iearned not only through reading of his art work and academic pursuits is VAC is much in doubt. It is not in- past experiments, but by conducting sometimes irritating. as well. is usually conceivable that the Center could be- laboratory work It But these two problems are often glamorous the man activelY at work come a and powerful monu- case that a more rhetorical than substantive. As for death a scientific research is a better teacher ment to an idea frozen to by in the second, A. Whitney Griswold, who and makes greater contribution to chilly Harvard atmosphere. The build- a as president of Yale was a strong than a person who is ing did not appear overnight, but dur- the community champion of creative arts in the univer- ing long period construction merely steeped in the knowledge of the of its sity, wrote that the 'ocreative artist is a previous A chemistry course and planning few conclusions were scientists. human being, and what improves him program without labs would be miserably in- reached on a for the Center. as a human being will improve him as the same way, a historian Only a handful of courses in the visual adequate. In an artist." While technical art schools profession apt arts will be ofiered next Fa1l, and even who is practicing his is may be more efiective than university more stimulating than a man who these seem to be largely experimental to be art departments in imparting technique, ventures, without a coherent program only reads the texts of others. a liberal education can give the po- to guide them or indicate further The laboratory is the workshop of tential artist a breadth of experience to classes. the scientist, and meters, test*tubes and draw on for his work. Harvard apparently is still uneasy other apparatus are his tools. He can- The teachers, also, can benefit from about admitting creative artists to its not do research without them. The the milieu of the university. In colleges communityl the dramatic statement of historian's workshop is the library; he such as Yale, where'art is taught, the purpose in the Le Corbusier building can neither teach nor do research with- faculty members of the art department almost seems to frighten it. The VAC out one. Similarly, the artist works in enter into the intellectual life of the and the men who may instill it with a studio. He may study color, design, community: they can provide important life are treated as dangerous intruders and the works of other artists, but to humanistic influence and learn from in the sacred halls of the Academy. do his swn vv61k-and to encourage contact with faculty of other disci The lack of definite plans for future creativity in his students-he needs a plines. Scholars in the social sciences courses, and even the present classes, studio. If it is accepted that artistic lind it useful to mix with men from are indicative of this uncertainty. Be- creativity is a proper use for man's other fields; the artist and his students fore any meaningful use can be made intellectual powers, then the artist- are no different in this respect. of the center, the University must care- and his studio-belong in the univer- Griswold found another reason for fully evaluate its own aims, and cleady sity. But is it accepted? artists' interest in the liberal arts col- determine where the creative artist While Wald pointed out important Iege: "the enlightenment of his audi- stands in relation to those aims. similarities between artistic and scien- ence." He wrote that "great art de- George Wald, professor of Biology, tiflc investigation he also noted a major pends on great patronage of art wrote in the report on the Visual Arts difference: "Science is organized know- it depends on high standards measured at Harvard (the Brown Report of ledge. Art, whatever its intrinsic ends, against universals, upon good taste and 1956), that "what divides man from express the beliefs, aspirations, and informed criticism." The liberal arts the beast is knowing and creating." emotions of the whole culture. The college, which attempts to set standards He pointed out that "it is man in his one is a severely limited, the other an of excellence in scholarship, should aspect of knowing that we find en- unlimited, enterprise. From this point also wish to instruct its students in shrined in the university." of view, the artist in the university takes rvhat Harvard's Eduard Seklar calls the position of the "visual literacy." Medieval traditions upon which uni- on something of philosopher. His is the voice through versities are built stressed "talking If the university is fully to benefit which all of us must speak." the presence creative arts, how- about knowing" as the business of a by of college. The university is delighted to The artist then, with his forms and ever, and if the artist is to be comfort- ennoble the men in the past who have color, not only reflects his culture, but able in the university, the university added to knowledge (both through speaks to it. His message is as im- must not treat the arts as a peripheral artist-in-residence now scholarship and creativity), but it has portant as that of the philosopher who concern. An offerings, long been suspicious of the contempor- uses words. The creation of visual art and then, and a few course a meaningful or even ary innovator. Experimental science is as legitimate a use of the mind as do not constitute arts program. that fought a long, difficult struggle for ac- the study of history, English, eco- useful creative Yet ceptance and did not win it until inter- nomics, or physics. In its fundamentals (Continued on Next Page) PAGE T6 THE HARVARD CR'MSOAI MAY, 1963 volved with student CASE publications enroll By emphasizing FOR CREATIVITY in graphics, and the intellectual skjlls-*a (Continued preceding the iesults are evi&nt of lrom page) in the high visuat gajfgSuing, analysis, -"rnory, (if not liteia*i verbalizing, it often quality of yale magazines. obscures ttre cre_ Skills aid ative precess. The most perceptive is all Harvard has at present. Un_ attrtudes ]earned in these courses art doubtedly often historians, like the most articulate some of the relutance to are exteremely useful to students plan_ non_ technical writers on science, move more quickly has come from a nrng careers publishing have a in eithei as thorough understanding fear of. setting up an alien writers or editors. of the thinkins colony of of the professional art students within men whose work they desc;be] the Some persons may University. There is nothing heretical about al_ gain tiis por"f," - through^art history Iowing an undergraduate to take draw_ courses; many Another reason given benefit from personal "un for the tardi_ rng, fbr instance, instead of Fine Arts creative eiperi- ness a feeling that establishing ence. .is a 13, for general education. In Renais_ creative arts program is a new ind sance times drawing was considered For these reasons, the experimental venture, with little prece- an-essential student who skill -of all educated men, does not intend to be an artist dent. This second excuse is lame. and everr today, or a as Gibson A. Danes, historian of art, but wants Harvard is one of the few universities Dean yale only to stim- of the School of Art,-a points ulate his own creativity, in the country which does not o{Ter out, miy find a ."drawing or painting is tool creative arts course more valuible creative arts instruction; the Brown tnat becomes than an extension to living.,, an historical one. committee seven years ago investigated The distribution art departments in 43 major col'ieges requirement at Har_ vard If Yale's experience demonstrates and found a vast amount oi experieice is supposed to awaken students io that arts can be at home ir1 ths rrni_ to draw on. important activities of the mina oui- versity, it also points to another side their own fleld. Certainly u*u."_ im_ ness.of.the podant conclusion. To teach creative creative process ii just as art well and constructively, the The YaIe precedent worthwhile as knowledge of Romantic univer- Foetry or the Art sity's commitment to it must be sub- of the Book in stantial. Dean ,,vou lerhaps the most useful precedent Medieval Europe. Danes said are . kidding yourself,, is Yale. With an approach io under_ if a university do", graduate Art historians not education verv similar to (who themselves had provide for both graduat-e and to struggle undergraduate Harvard's, yale has found its Schoot to gain admittance to the instruction. For with_ university) of Art and Architecture to be not only often claim that the non_ out the standards and inspiration pro- artist can learn vided compatible with the rest of the uni_ all he needs to know by graduate studenti already ad- vanced versity, but a strong asset as well. in their work, the undergrad_ may elect to take uates have little perspective for judging -Undergraduates a their B.A.. in sculpture ind painting, bui own performance. few do: most undergraduates tafe cre_ Danes , explained that graduate stu_ ative arts courses for credit in general dents "do a lot of the leaching,, at education. Thus, while the yale"School Yale, both through direct criticiJm of plays an active part in undergraduate undergraduate work and by example. education, it is primarily for gr-aduates. Further, the existence of graduate A creative arts department stu_ at Harvard dents committed to art professionally could have a similar function. makes teaching at the School more The few undergraduate concentra_ attractive to practicing artists. tors in art at yale do not find them_ Undergraduates at yale do not con_ selves lost in an alien sea. They con_ sider the creative tend that the arts courses to be stimulus of academic guts.. grading curve is strict, work helps their ,The and art; it broadens their considerable work is required. prospective far Nor is more than formal train_ the student allowed to dabble ing in a professional around art school would with any whim that happens allow. to enter his head. The courses caretutty provide "l'he a coherent School of Art at yale has not series of problemj to be solved; students hindered or interfered with extra_cur_ are expected to develop ingenuity, "but ricular programs in the Colleges, which George Wald. only wittrin the limita'- tions imposed.', operate like Harvard,s Houses. But According to Dane, the School does set a standard "art courses are frivolous only if offered of what for the purpose of general education h student in a frivolous manner.,, Good courses q:q{ art, and. its faculty is about art and creativity through available for both the are disciplined; the important element technical and ciiti_ history of art. To many scholais, cal advice. the is the instructor. history of art seems more respectable than frequent Further, Yale's extensive work in studio work. .One complaint about cre- atlve arts departments graphics has been especially useful to is that a great But art history, like other history, is artist a more traditional college activity_ is not made he is b-orn. an assimilation and interpretation of While - publications. Many undergraduates no art department would claim in_ the past. It is scholarly and verbal. the ability to produce great artists, a MAY, r953 THE HARVARD CRTMSON PAoE 17 staff of sensitive instructors can en- NEW LOCAT|ON FERRANTI. DEGE, INC. courage and develop those with extra- UNIVERSITY ordinary talent. And the non-artists - can be stimulated as well, if not to TYPEWRITER CO., [\C. lndustriol ond Retoil the same degree, to realize more futr1y SALES _ RENTALS Supplies their own imaginative capacities. 'Io REPAIRS rule out the possibility of training po- 89-91 Mt. Auburn St. @ tential professional artists would limit an art program to a self-imposed level Kl7-2720 of mediocrity. Olivetli Smith-Coronq Eleclric I252 MASS. AVE. - Hermes OlYmPio At present, by not providing a fac' - KI 7-8600 ond Slondqrd Typewriters ulty of men competent in many fields Porlable of art and by offering only a few scattered sub;lects, Harvard limits the effectiveness o{ its program. Dean lDrlrlughtsrrn,en P0so;nello to Pieosso Ford is aware of this deflciency, but Great trorrn powerful groups in the Faculty do not By IAI(OB ROSENBERG share his vision of a first-rate visual There are some hooks which rnay be enjoyecl again and again through many arts department at Harvard. Within years of ol,nership. Sucl.r a book is GREAT DRAUGFITSMEN FROM PI- the visual arts faculty itself there is also SANELLO T0 PICASSO. It is first of all a book no person even remotely dissension about the future of the intcrested in art can resist browsing through-{or here are over 300 magnificent o{ the Mirko Basaldella, Lecturer in rl:arvings, superhly reproduced. It is also a thought-provoking survey VAC. eight titans o{ artistic draughtsmanship: Pisanello, Leonardo, Raphael, Durer, Design who teaches the advanced de- Remhrarrdi, Wi:rtteau, Degas, and Picasso. And, through the lucid and in- sign courses, is opposed to teaching Jormative text, it relates the drarrings of each man to his lilework-and to painting and sculpture at the Center. the artistic spirit of his time. {i12.50 "Students cannot ereate arl," he states flatly, and therefore should not play urud aaateh tor with conventional art forms. He pre- Asod,rea flDel Sarto ltg Sgd,neg JJ. Nreed'betg fers to teach just design, using many two and three dimensional approaches. The Clo,ssico,l Trczd,itiom in Vestarn, Art "I don't rvant to do the conventional bg Berufiawtiw Rawlurtd,, el/r. thing-what we are doing is more interesting."

Certainly the work Mirko's students produce is not art, and one wonders if his "experimental" approach will ever prepare them for anything more than design. There is a self-fulfilling pro- iVaeet yww eil.n enjoy qwa{,ity nnusic phecy in Mirko's assumption that stu- . dents cannot be artists, particularly fr^am your oun qtsten?, . . when students are denied the normal tools of the studio. Unfortunately the Recent technical advances have made it possible for you to have professional other courses contemplated for the a.dio ccmponenls in your living room also have little artistic potential. wiihoi,t reafranging {urniture. Huge Center equipmenl cabinels are no longer neces- sary. place the Until Harvard flnds a for Witness lhe KLH Model Four loud- creative arts in its curriculum, and pro- speaker sysfem pictured above-a per- fecl example of quality in a small pack- vides a high quality faculty and con- age. centration opportunities for both un- P,UDIO LAB, a small business thal specializes in professional sound equip- dergraduates and graduates, even Mir- ment can help you seleci your syslem classes will from the finest components available. ko's experimental design Their Iistening rooms (locaieC iust across suffer from isolation. The University from ) are open from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. should accept the eloquent challenge AII systems purchased from AUDIO Le Corbusier has offered, and develop LAB are delivered, installed, and guaran- ieed for one full year al no exlra a faculty and a concentration in the cre- charge. ative arts. The program should certainly include the courses Mirko has devel- oped, but it would be short-sighted and unreasonable to exclude traditional arts audio lab, inc. SIXTEEN ETIOT STREET, CAMBRIDGE 38, MAssACHUsETTs and artists. PAGE 19 MAY, 1953 THE HARVARD CR'MSO''I

S. H. McCartney ,-^_x The Architectural Origins COMPLETE AUTOMOTIVE Of the Carpenter Cerater SERVICE

=4.A 1 E CORBUSIER has vigorouslY ex- pears in the designs which Le Cor- 976 MASS. AVENUE I ' pressed his theory of design in busier submitted for the Palace of the KI 7-7330 the Carpenter Center for the Visual Soviets in 1931, and was previouslY Arts. However hostile or friendly its included in the Savoye Villa of Poissy, reception here may be, it is one of the France. The interplay of levels which most important buildings ever con- has come to characterize manY of Le structed at Harvard. Corbusier's recent buildings is largely missing from the Visual Arts Center. The harsh, raw severity of Le Cor' The sculptured gracefulness of the jars to busier a world conditioned Chapel of Ronchamp and the Phillips comfortable art forms, STANHOPE softer, more Pavilion of the Brussels World's Fair but it also establishes a conspicuous finds itself in an abbreviated form in in modern architec- point of evolution the circular wings of the center and in Center Le ture. Into the Visual Arts a distant sort of way in the sweeping the major Corbusier has brought all slant of its ramp. BINDERY tenets of this evolution. Le Corbusier is, in outlook, a logi- Since World War II, the integral gi2n his thinking appears in pat- parts of Le Corbusier design have con- terns -of severe, and consequently cold, sisted of pillar foundations, glass equations. And his theories of design walls, sun breaks, roof terraces, and follow these patterns of thought. He schemes free from orthodox, exterior places emphasis on industrial function- -3 influences. The Visual Arts Center alism in his art and he pleads with unites all of these basic factors. architecture to keep pace with a The Carpenter Center, Le Cor- changing industrial society. He de- busier's first building in North Amer- scribes the need for a technologY populations and ica, derives its character from some of which will serve vast the most imporiant of Le Corbusier's communities of people with due equal- Bookbinders need Edition designs. The glass walls cI the upper ity. The solution he finds for that flexibility levels of the Center evidently appear is in the rawness and the originally in the Refuge City of the of concrete and the other austere ma- Salvation Army, built in Paris in terials which he seems to believe con- 1920. The glass blocks which line one stitute an absolute return to nature. wall of the front elevation were used B. R, -? similarly in the Swiss Pavilion of -R. Paris's University City in 1930. And the austere interior, though noticeable in virtually every Le Corbusier work, especially resembles that of the Villa Sarabhai which was erected in 1955. 155 Columbus Avenue The studios of the center are shield- CREDITS ed from direct sunlight by concrete PHOTO breakers. The exact positioning of Boston these visors is not duplicated in any Cover - Albert B. Crenshaw previous Le Corbusier work but is Page 2 Paul W. Williams vaguely similar to those used in the - government buildings of Chandigarh, P age 4 Harvard Yearbook - Publications India, and in designs for a ProPosed Algiers which was HA 6.2690 construction in Page 8 Harvard University Archives never realized. - Pageg-JohnNickols The pedestrian ramp which Passes ap- Pages lO and ll Paul W. Williams thr-ough the center of the building - PAGE 24 THE HARV.4RD CRIMSOT{ MAY, I963 pyramids. This attention to form is evi- Cubist paintings (under the name LE CORBUSIER dent eyen in his very first work, a house Jeanneret which he still uses for his tContinued lroru Page 9) designed for his art teacher at age L7. painting and sculpture), and developed Then Le Corbusier, using his given his fundamental ideas. He had written bathrooms are windowless. The ar- name, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, was Towards a New Architecture with its rangment has brought criticism on the still studying in his home town in the conclusion that "the old architectural grounds that it is crampod and lacks French-speaking area of Switzerland. code, with its mass of rules and regu- privacy. Soon he went to Paris as aa apprentice lations evolved during 4,000 years, is The fulflllment of Le Corbusier's architect. After several years travel, he no longer of any interest . all is plans at Chandigarh, Marseilles, and settled permanently in Paris in 1917. values have been revised." Nantes, followed two decades in which Five years later he set up his headquar- "Architecture or Revolution," he de- investors and public authorities spurned ters on the Left Bank in a former Jesuit clared in the book2s closing paragraph. his plans although his ideas had a wide monastery at 35 Rue de Sevres which "Revoiution can be avoided." But b_v impact on architects and professional' he still occupies. then Le Corbusier was well along on planners. His vast plans for the re- During those five years he had done his own revolution. construction of Paris as a city of widely spaced, 60-story skyscraPers never neared adoption. And a similar fate met schemes for Stockholm, AntwerP, TllE GREAT AOES 0F and Algiers. Bahcock-Davis Assotiates Yet, the impact of these imaginings lll|ORTB ARC1lITTCTU,RE was widespread. In Rio de Janeiro, a Incorporated group of architects, including Oscar Established I909 Niemeyer, designed the Brazilian min- istry of Education and Health (1939- Corbusier's IY|ASTERS OT 1943), incorporating Le 474 DORCHESTER AVENUE ideas stilts, sun-breakers, roof-gar- den, cubist- design of windows and bal- I|{ORID ARCllITECTURT BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS conies. Niemeyer's plans for Brasilia also show the impact of Le Corbusier. Phone: AN 8-2241 In the late 1940's Le Corbusier as a member of an international group of II,IASIERS OF architects, developed the master plan for the United Nations Secretariat and CO}|TTil|PORARY ARC]|IIECIURE Assembly. Yet, until the completion of Unite d'Habitation and the stream of SIRUCTURAT SIEET commissions which followed it, Le Cor- ORNAITTENTAT IRON WORK was primarily important as an busier P,ELICAt'| 1lI.STORY OF ART architectural theorist rather than a pro- FURNISHED AND INSTALLED ducing architect. Some of his later work, including the FOR THE be at some Carpenter Center, seems to VISUAL ARTS CENTER odds with his early theorizing. In his T]lE TASTE OT OUR TIIIE very influential Towards a New Archi' tecture of 1923, Le Corbusier wrotel "We must create the mass-production spirit. The spirit of constructing mass- And Mony Other Series And production houses. The spirit of living - in mass-production houses. The spirit Titles On Art And Babcock Davis Associates of conceiving mass-production houses." Earlier, he had said: "The house is a Architecture Also Msnulacture machine to live in." The Carpenter Center' at Harvard, STEEL AND ALUMINUM as well as the principle government Browse The Coop Book Depis. buildings in Chandigarh and the chapel FLAG POLES of Ronchamp, show an attention to TILTING ALUMINUM FLAGPOLES sculpturesque form, which clashes with strictly utilitarian considerations. This The view of buildings as sculpture, though, EASY ACCESS ROOF HATCHES is a development of another consistent strain in Le Corbusier's thought: archi- FLOOR AND SIDEWALK HATCHES tecture as the "masterly, correct and cooP magnificent play" of primary forms '- spheres, cylinders, cones, cubes, and