Cecil & Ida Green Building, M.I.T.

My Uncle Dolan likes the Greens a lot, and that was a fair part of my motivation for doing this drawing. Cecil Green founded, and for a long while headed, Geophysical Services Incorporated where Dolan spent most of his professional career. They later became part of Texas Instruments.

The huge black metal sculpture at the base of the building is by Alexander Calder and serves the very practical purpose of breaking up the wind so it doesn't bowl people over as they come out of the Green Building. A smaller version used as a model during the design process resides off Massachusetts Avenue in the neighborhood of the 77 Mass Ave entrance.

The building houses the earth sciences. I have heard that the people doing outer atmosphere research are housed toward the top and those doing oceanography are housed toward the bottom and all the other layers follow sequentially in between. However, I think I also recall using the CP/M microcomputer of a guy doing oceanographic research, and he was up toward the top and had a nice view.

November 10, 1996