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