Architecture Critic Attacks Harvard's Long Range Plan

The architecture critic for The Boston Globe has written a letter criticizing the University for its "self-interested" approach to planning in its Interim Long Range Plan and for failing to consult Design School faculty in the plan's preparation.

Robert Campbell, a Cambridge resident and a graduate of the Design School, said in his October 22 letter to Donald Moulton, assistant vice president for community affairs, that the report seems "to be a more narcissistic document than would have appeared likely or even possible after the community confrontations of recent years."

A False Premise

Harvard's assumption that the University is a micro-city located within a larger city is a false premise of planning, Campbell said, because it treats Harvard as a self-contained enclave.

Campbell said that the most obvious example of the failure of such an approach is the plan's treatment of the problem of Harvard Square. Even though the crisis of the Square area affects both the com- munity and Harvard, there was no reference in the Interim Report as to what the future of the Square's development should be.

"Whether rightly or not, Harvard as you know is perceived by much of the Cambridge community to be pursuing in a less than open manner goals that are narrowly self-interested with respect to the development of the Square. The Interim Report doesn't do much to erase such an impression," Campbell's letter said.

Internal Planning

Moulton said yesterday that the University had attempted in the report to deal mainly with internal Harvard planning because it would seem "a bit presumptious for us to tell the city what should be done."

Campbell's letter also pointed out that Harvard had failed to utilize its faculty at the Design School in preparing the report. "I am convinced that the result would have been much more sophisticated, more creative, and responsive to a much broader range of goals [had the Design faculty participated]," Campbell said.

The Interim Report was distributed at Harvard and sent to citizens and organizations in the Cambridge, Allston and Boston communities after its release in order to solicit outside reaction before the final report is released in February.

Wider Range

Moulton, Charles U. Daly, vice president for government and community affairs and the report's author, Supratik Bose, manager of Long Range Planning in the Planning Office, said this fall that they expect the final report to include a wider range of opinions and to take a broader perspective in relation to the Cambridge community.

Criticisms of the report by several groups have focused on Harvard's failure to outline explicitly properties it may be interested in purchasing in Cambridge and to specify particular projects being considered for developmental sites.

The original draft of the Interim Report, included a detailed section concerning these plans, but the section was dropped before publication because administrators feared that adverse reaction to some of the plans might arise, sources said this week