Colleagues of MIT Architecture professor Lawrence B. Anderson created a video tribute in 1994 because so little was documented in one place about his remarkable life and work. Video highlights (audio starts at 00:30)
Awarded grants from the Graham Foundation and MIT, forty participants are listed below, including:
I.M. Pei *
Walter Netsch
Charles Correa
Robert Campbell
Among many pioneering projects, Anderson MIT ’30 designed the first important modern building on an American university campus in 1938 with his longtime partner and fellow professor Herbert L. Beckwith ’26. In 1959, William E. Haible also joined the firm as partner.
MIT projects include:
Alumni Pool, 1938 (in 2004, connected to Frank Gehry’s Stata Center)
Briggs Field House, 1939 (demolished)
Bldg 24 – Radiation Lab, 1941-42
Rockwell Cage, 1947
Van de Graaff Generator building, 1948 (demolished)
Bldg 16 – Dorrance Food Lab, 1952 (first building on MIT campus over five stories)
McCormick Hall, 1962-67 (first women’s dorm at MIT)
Bldg 56 – Whitaker Life Sciences Building, 1963
Pierce Boathouse, 1965
Anderson was one of the most influential and beloved forces to shape the history of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, yet he is not widely known.
Selected bio stats:
department head and dean 1947-1972
professor for 43 years
graduate of MIT and winner of Beaux-Arts’ Paris Prize in 1930
Anderson transformed the country’s oldest university program in architecture, established in 1865, into one of its most progressive, a tradition that continues today.
Influential MIT deans who preceded Anderson:
William Wurster
Pietro Belluschi
* Former students I.M. Pei ’40 and William Hartmann ’39 established $10,000 Lawrence B. Anderson Award in 1987 ($20,000 in 2017)
FUNDING provided by:
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
Council for the Arts at MIT
MIT Architecture Department
Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (William Pedersen ’64)
Mrs. Pietro Belluschi
CBT Architects/Childs Bertman Tseckares (Maurice Childs ’60 & Richard Bertman ’60)
Elizabeth Close ’34, architect
Winston Close ’35, architect
John R. Myer ’52, former department head of MIT Architecture
William Porter ’69, dean emeritus of MIT Architecture
Carl Koch, MIT professor
Ralph Rapson, MIT professor
Armand P. Bartos ’35, architect
Names of 23 additional contributors are listed in the closing video credits
PARTICIPANTS (when taped in 1994):
Stanford Anderson, department head of MIT Architecture
Howard W. Johnson, president emeritus of MIT
Tunney Lee ’43, former department head of MIT Urban Studies and Planning
Donlyn Lyndon, former department head of MIT Architecture
William Mitchell, dean of MIT Architecture
William Porter ’69, dean emeritus of MIT Architecture
Diana Abbott (Mrs. John Adams), client & neighbor
Wayne Andersen, MIT professor
Lawrence Sven Anderson, astrophysicist & son
Ann Beha ’75, architect
Julian Beinart ’56, MIT professor
Maria Bentel ’51, architect
Robert Bliss ’49, architect
Robert Brannen, architect
Karen Anderson Cantine, artist & daughter
Robert Campbell, architect & writer
Maurice Childs ’60, architect
Robert Coles ’55, architect
Charles Correa ’55, MIT professor
Albert Dietz ’32, MIT professor
Earl Flansburgh ’57, architect
Leon Groisser ’48, MIT professor
Imre Halasz, MIT professor
David Johnson ’47, architect
Gerhard Kallmann, architect
Frank Kennett ’49, architect
Judith Anderson Lawler, architect & daughter
Michael McKinnell, MIT professor
Henry Millon, MIT professor
Walter Netsch ’43, architect
I.M. Pei ’40, architect
Marianne Fisker Pierce, artist & daughter of Kay Fisker
Walter Pierce ’47, architect
William Purcell ’38, architect
John Sheehy ’67, architect
Edward Tsoi ’66, architect
Jan Wampler, MIT professor
Henry Wood, architect
PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, & INTERVIEWER:
Victoria LaGuette ’76 & ’98 for the Foundation for Modern Architecture
ON LOCATION VIDEO PRODUCTION:
John Terry ’68, independent filmmaker, dean and department head at the Rhode Island School of Design for 20 years, and founding member of MIT’s film/video program
Michael Majoros ’85, documentary director & RISD faculty member
SPECIAL ADVISORS:
Robert D. Howard ’67
Brad Schiffer, architect
TAPED AT ELEVEN LOCATIONS in Cambridge & Boston, including:
Anderson’s home in Lincoln, MA
MIT’s Alumni Pool
MIT VIDEO PRODUCTIONS provided:
Studio space for additional interview footage
Craig R. Milanesi, videographer
Thomas P. White, videographer
Jay Collier, digital editor of both archival and highlights footage
FOURTEEN HOURS OF ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE reside at:
MIT’s Rotch Visual Collections
Chicago’s Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
HALF-HOUR TRIBUTES of highlights reside at:
MIT’s Rotch Visual Collections
Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library
Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture