With its roots being older than the USA, it a building that has transitioned over the years from its colonial beginnings to dorm room facilities followed by it becoming soldiers’ shelter which let to the structure being damaged and mishandled. Now, the buildings hosts most of the administrative offices of Havard along with dorm room for freshman student, by doing so the essence of its original purpose is preserved. It has continued to have an impact of global imagery through its colonial power, but the sprits of regional politics still exist as it is the epicenter as it can be considered one of the nation-building asset for an emerging country. Even by maintaining its private sector decorum, it makes an assertive amount of impact on the community. This institutional space has undergone several different orientations of usage of its space which has been under the influence of political actions during each era which is being reflected throughout the structure.
Surviving even today in the old yard of Havard, it has seen cycles of economic and social diversity, nor it has turned itself into a global suburb through its power towards education. This building of three floors has been of keen importance to the Havard vicinity as it has historical significance through its brick-clad walls, rectangular white painted wooden window panels, double lintel white wooden doors, grey pitched roofs like a half-hexagon with wooden skylights and six air ventilation shafts and a fenced terrace at the apex of the roof. The air shafts were a later addition to the structure in 1722, and they were used as observatories with 24- foot long telescopes. The bifurcated staircase shows a significant relevance to the ways of representation of power in those periods of time where architectural symbolism was used to showcase power through grandness. This is not a governmental building yet, it held enough power to portray itself to the people as a reflection of what order of society should be in its vicinity. Relationship between spatial metaphors describing disciplines and more concrete descriptions of institutional space. A large organization like this needed large buildings, which meant that they would have a scale and separateness that was inevitable.
The reaction of its architects was to find ways in which the institution could rely on logic, function, and even economic constraints as the building blocks for a new kind of monumentality. A walker can sample almost 300 years of innovative designs in an easy stroll, it’s like civic architecture stripped itself down and bulked itself up. Liberty of man is never assured by institutions and laws. Architecture in itself cannot resolve social problems. The savior of architecture is partly the history of the profession, partly the evolution of the science of construction and partly a rewriting of aesthetic theories. Boston city stands for power that accrued over the centuries.
Bibliography & References
“Massachusetts Hall.” Cambridge
Historical Tours, cambridgehistoricaltours.org/about-us/sites/massachusetts-hall/.
“Space, Knowledge, and Power” Interview with Paul Rabinow, Skyline, March 1982, trans. Christan Hubert
Yorumlar