The story of the decade long, billion-dollar building boom at MIT and how it produced major works of architecture by Charles Correa, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Fumihiko Maki, and Kevin Roche.
Exploring Boston's past and present: 12 walks that trace the creation of the city's man-made land in the central waterfront, Back Bay, South End, Charlestown, and elsewhere.
A Landscape History of New England takes a view of New England’s landscapes that goes beyond picture postcard-ready vistas of white-steepled churches, open pastures, and tree-covered mountains. Its chapters describe, for example, the Native American presence in the Maine Woods; offer a history of agriculture told through stone walls, woodlands, and farm buildings; report on the fragile ecology of tourist-friendly Cape Cod beaches; and reveal the ethnic stereotypes informing Colonial Revivalism.
When Jay Keyser arrived at MIT in 1977 to head the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, he writes, he "felt like a fish that had been introduced to water for the first time." At MIT, a colleague grabbed him by the lapels to discuss dark matter; Noam Chomsky called him "boss" (double SOB spelled backward?); and engaging in conflict resolution made him feel like "a marriage counselor trying to reconcile a union between a Jehovah’s witness and a vampire." In Mens et Mania, Keyser recounts his academic and administrative adventures during a career of more than thirty
An MIT "hack" is an ingenious, benign, and anonymous prank or practical joke, often requiring engineering or scientific expertise and often pulled off under cover of darkness—instances of campus mischief sometimes coinciding with April Fool’s Day, final exams, or commencement.
MIT was founded in 1861 as a polytechnic institute in Boston's Back Bay, overshadowed by its neighbor across the Charles River, Harvard University. Harvard offered a classical education to young men of America's ruling class; the early MIT trained men (and a few women) from all parts of society as engineers for the nation's burgeoning industries. Over the years, MIT expanded its mission and ventured into other fields—pure science, social science, the humanities—and established itself in Cambridge as Harvard's enduring rival.
How did MIT become MIT? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology marks the 150th anniversary of its founding in 2011. Over the years, MIT has lived by its motto, "Mens et Manus" ("Mind and Hand"), dedicating itself to the pursuit of knowledge and its application to real-world problems. MIT has produced leading scholars in fields ranging from aeronautics to economics, invented entire academic disciplines, and transformed ideas into market-ready devices. This book examines a series of turning points, crucial decisions that helped define MIT.
In problem solving, as in street fighting, rules are for fools: do whatever works—don't just stand there! Yet we often fear an unjustified leap even though it may land us on a correct result. Traditional mathematics teaching is largely about solving exactly stated problems exactly, yet life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions. This engaging book is an antidote to the rigor mortis brought on by too much mathematical rigor, teaching us how to guess answers without needing a proof or an exact calculation.
To many science and engineering students, the task of writing may seem irrelevant to their future professional careers. At MIT, however, students discover that writing about their technical work is important not only in solving real-world problems but also in developing their professional identities.
Fresh Pond Reservation, at the northwest edge of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been described as a "landscape loved to death." Certainly it is a landscape that has been changed by its various uses over the years and one to which Cantabridgeans and Bostonians have felt an intense attachment.
In the 1990s, MIT began a billion-dollar building program that transformed its outdated, run-down campus into an architectural showplace. Funded by the high-tech boom of the 1990s and and driven by a pent-up demand for new space, MIT’s ambitious rebuilding produced five major works of architecture: Kevin Roche’s Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center, Steven Holl’s Simmons Hall, Frank Gehry’s Stata Center, Charles Correa’s Brain and Cognitive Science Complex, and Fumihiko Maki’s still-unrealized project for the Media Laboratory.
At its founding, Boston was a small peninsula; over the last 375 years the city has doubled in size by filling in the surrounding tidal flats—areas covered with water at high tide and exposed at low. In Walking Tours of Boston's Made Land, historian Nancy Seasholes outlines twelve walks that trace where and why Boston's man-made land was created, and, along the way, uncovers fascinating and little-known pieces of Boston history.
The story of the decade long, billion-dollar building boom at MIT and how it produced major works of architecture by Charles Correa, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Fumihiko Maki, and Kevin Roche.
Rachel Rosenfield LafoGillian NaglerExamines the crucial role that Boston played in the development of American photography in the second half of the twentieth century.
Exploring Boston's past and present: 12 walks that trace the creation of the city's man-made land in the central waterfront, Back Bay, South End, Charlestown, and elsewhere.
Blake HarrisonRichard W. JuddAn examination of New England’s diverse landscapes, and our varying perceptions of them, across two centuries of settlement, work, and recreation.
How MIT’s first nine presidents helped transform the Institute from a small technical school into a major research university.
This is a personal story of the educational process at one of the world's great technological universities.
The former president of MIT discusses challenges and policy issues confronting academia, science and technology, and the world at large.
Rachel Rosenfield LafoGillian Nagler
Blake HarrisonRichard W. Judd
