Josep Luís Sert: Harvard University Campus Planning and Buildings, 1956–1968

Abstract

Leadership roles in the Harvard University Planning Office and the Cambridge City Planning Commission prompted Josep Lluìs Sert to adapt the utopian proclivities he formulated as President of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) to American social and cultural realities. The Harvard planning report of 1960 in turn provided a theoretical basis for Sert’s architectural designs for the university, particularly his firm’s Center for the Study of World Religions (1959–61), Holyoke Center (1958–67), and Peabody Terrace (1962–62). All were developed with landscape architects Sasaki, Walter and Associates and built in the campus periphery 1. Although acclaimed in the architectural media, the latter two examples provoked considerable controversy locally, as this account elaborates.