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Designing MIT: Bosworth's New Tech

MIT Associate Professor Mark M. Jarzombek digs deep into the Institute's past.

As MIT approaches the completion of one of the most extensive building initiatives in history, now is the perfect opportunity to understand how the MIT campus in Cambridge came to be.

Enter Mark M. Jarzombek, Director of History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art and Associate Professor of History and Architecture at MIT. Jarzombek has published a book titled, Designing MIT: Bosworth's New Tech. The book details architect William Welles Bosworth's challenges in the planning and construction of MIT's Cambridge campus beginning in 1912 on the recommendation of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Jarzombek addresses the needs of the Institute in its former Back Bay residence and examines competing proposals for a new campus, including one from John Freeman, one of the country's leading civil engineers at the time. This competition resulted in a far more innovative design that employed new European concepts of industrialism, efficiency, and aesthetics in academic structures, Jarzombek argues.

"What I've enjoyed about the process of writing this book has been getting to know MIT better and further developing a sense of history with the Institute," says Jarzombek. "As an historian living in this area, this was a great way in which I could contribute to our understanding our city and MIT's role in its urban setting."

Designing MIT offers a multitude of images from the MIT archives and also helps to shed light on the academic culture in the early 20th century, the role of patronage in the world of architecture, and the history of Bosworth's Beaux-Arts style of design in the United States.

To purchase a copy of the book, visit the Northeastern University Press. You can also learn more about Mark M. Jarzombek at MIT's Department of Architecture.