Medford mail tribune., February 03, 1963, Image 9

1 1.
Sports
MEDFORD
Features
The Carpenter Center for Visual
Tribune
SECTION B MEDFORD, OREGON, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1963 ' PAGES 1 to 8
Arts
Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates studying design
will find their drawing boards and work benches Monday
in the new Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts North
America's first structure by the French architect, Le
Corbusier.
The students will take up their drawing and construc
tion under the Sculptor Mirko Basaldella, in open studios
and workshops, decorated by window panels of red, yellow,
green and white, broken only by widely-spaced columns
of concrete. They will look through glass walls to a variety
of outdoor terraces.
All the studio and workshop areas are shielded from
the direct rays of the sun by L Corbusier's familiar "brises
soleils" concrete sun breakers.
Siveral Seminar Rooms
Above the two floors of design studios and shops,
under a large bubble-drome in one of several seminar''
rooms, Prof. I. A. Richards will teach "Visual Communica
tions," and Prof. Edward F. Sekler will discuss "Urban
Design."
At the top, in a terraced studio on the fifth floor,
Mirko Basaldella has established his own workshop, peo
pled with scores of figures in wood, bronze, alabaster and
styrofoam.
In the basement, in a multi-use experimental audi
torium, Prof. Laurence Wylie will show films of French
life to his class on "The Civilization of France," and the
department of history will present a lecture course in the
history of American architecture.
Behind the auditorium projection wall, Robert Gardner
will direct the installation of light and communication
studios, with facilities for editing, cutting, sound-mixing
animation, and storage of film. Behind the opposite wall
of the auditorium, workmen will be completing a series of
photographic darkrooms.
Varied Program of Activities
Course offerings and a varied program of activities
and exhibitions to be initiated next fall are being plan
ned by a Faculty Committee on the Practice of the Visual
Arts. In addition, the comimttce is considering how the
Center can best support the strong undergraduate interest
in the visual arts which has been fostered within the
Harvard Houses.
The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, given through
the Program for Harvard College by A. S. V. Carpenter
and the late Mrs. Carpenter of Mcdford, will be dedi
cated late in May with a simple ceremony and an exhi
bition of the works of the architect, Le Corbusier. There
alio will be a graphic presentation of the creative develop
ment of the building from the first rough sketches to the
finished drawings.
Carpenter expressed his hopes for the new Center In
these words. "I think of the building as opening the door
of future and present enjoyment to those who pass lightly
through. I see no need of making it the exclusive path
for those who are going to spend their lives in some one
of the branches of the visual arts."
Members of the Harvard-Cambridge community, mean
while, have been interested in the curves and angles in
Le Cobusier's concrcte-and-glass design, set between two
neo-Georgian orthodoxies, the Fogg Art Museum and the
Harvard Faculty club.
Seems Richly Complex
To the passerby, the exterior seems richly complex.
The five floors .are all different in configuration: Rec
tangles and squares broken by asymmetrical curves. Each
floor is provided with indoor and outdoor terraces, while
a pedestrian ramp extended through the building at the
third floor, connecting Qulncy st. and Prescott si.
Many of Le Cobusier's familiar devices are present in
a statement of his philosophy: the intcr-penetration of out
door space and indoor space, the natural concrete surfaces,
the ramp, pilotis (columns) supporting the various floors,
and the brises soleils (sun breakers).
The building is supported by concrete columns, vary
ing in diameter with the load each supports. From Pres
cott st. can be seen columns rising 22 feet to support the
overhanging lobe of the third floor.
In setting up its program, the Committee on the Prac
tice of the Visual Arts asked for a building that would
be mainly "atelier." Le Cobusicr found such a program
exceptionally compatible with his own sense of what a
workshops in the visual arts should be, and provided
Harvard with a building where open space, light and color
provide a maximum studio atmosphere. In his own words,
delivered with the first plans of the building, Le Corbusier
wrote (in French):
A Ground Which is Favorable
"Harvard university's initiative has found in Le Cor
busier a ground which is favorable to the implantation
of the ideas which constitute the present programme of
this university."
The building is organized by floors: basement, multi
purpose auditorium, light ana communication studios and
photographic dark rooms; first floor, administrative areas
and common room; second floor, worship for three-dimensional
design; third floor, workshops for two-dimensional
design, and exhibition space; fourtli floor, seminar rooms
and special projects; fifth floor, artists" studio. ,
Still incomplete in detail, the building will come to
full life in late spring when greenery flourishes on tht
terrace levels and exhibitions are in place.
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Sun-breakers for light, columns for strength are seen in part of the open stuc'lo for two-dimensional drawing In
the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard unl versity.
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