Functionalism Is Keynote of New Graduate Housing Center

When the new graduate school housing center is completed in 1950, it will represent a revolution in architectural design, at least as far as conservative Harvard goes. For the dormitories are a product of the seven members of Architects Collaborative, all of whom are disciples of the functionalist school of design.

In concrete terms, this means that the new buildings will lack the ornament and decoration of undergraduate Houses, and even more important, will be far simpler in internal design and structure.

Some of this simplicity stems from economics in the rooms themselves there will be only one lavatory for each floor, and such items as private bedrooms and fireplaces will be eliminated. But these changes merely represent part of the larger plan that went into designing the dorms.

For each building has been worked out on what architects call "a structural common denominator"--meaning that one basic plan or blueprint covers the entire project. All double rooms will be exactly the same size, and to make two single suites the builders need only fit an additional partition down the middle.

This uniformity is quite a contrast to such structures as Lowell House, where tradition has it that President Lowell designed the windows in a symmetrical pattern and then left the unfortunate architects to fit the rooms in as best they could.

The virtue of the Graduate School design is that the regularity will cut building time and labor, costs far below average, making construction problems simpler. Standard spacing will even make partial pre-fabrication possible in some cases. As far as hard cash goes, the designers estimate is about $3,000 on each student, whereas the undergraduate Houses cost over $12,000 per man.

Economy was a big factor in planning the new center because a rigid budget of $3,000,000 was laid down by the Corporation, but low building costs were not the main reason for choosing functional design; the architects considered such factors as the scale of other buildings in the area, the "spirit" of the older architecture at Harvard, and the atmosphere that College buildings should represent.

Not Like Widener

As the partners in Architects Collaborative explain it, "There has been an attempt to get away from such imposing structures as Langdell and Widener libraries, which were copied from another age with a different spirit. A modern dormitory should be residential rather than institutional."

Hence the ground plan of Jarvis Court will have plenty of open, landscaped courtyards to offset the massed effect of the buildings, while the dormitories themselves have enough variation in design to be "uniform but not regimented."

The architects have designed the buildings in keeping with Harvard's three centuries of construction by minimizing the massive effect such a large group of houses is apt to create. "When you walk through the Yard," the architects point out, "you are not struck by the number of buildings so much as by the trees the paths, and the people. In the same way, the Houses by the river are spread out so that they never jar the eye."

The new buildings likewise are kept fairly low. Horizontal lines predominate, and the low flat roofs minimize the size of the buildings as well as provide the most practical kind of covering, adding to the effect of landscaping and the spatial layout.

Inside the houses and the common hall will be many new features for comfort and convenience. The use of "entries" has been abandoned in favor of two main stairways in each building, leading to every floor. The theory behind this is that there are more residents per floor than there are per entry, and the new arrangement will bring more students into contact with each other.

Ramp Leads to Dining Hall

The dining hall will be reached by a ramp that leads directly to the serving lines, thus preventing crowding in the room itself while permitting students to move easily in any direction once they reach the end of the line. There will be other rooms in this building for recreational purposes, while the first floor of one dormitory will be turned over to common rooms for meetings.