Quotes and Stories
about Building 20
Quotes from books
and archival sources
- Karl
Compton, about MIT retaining the temporary WWII buildings
- Fred
Hapgood, about the appearance and status of Building 20
- Albert
Hill, about the amount of space RLE occupied in Building 20
- James
Killian, about his regard for Building 20
- Jerry
Lettvin, about the procreative nature of Building 20
- McCreery
& Thierault (architects), describing the design of the building
- McCreery
& Thierault (architects), about the building materials
- Julius
Stratton, summarizing RLE's space in Building 20
- Jerome
Wiesner, about the space available in Building 20
- Jerome
Wiesner, about the building as a breeding ground
- Jerrold
Zacharias, about the building as a place where things start
Quotes available
on other websites
- The
Radiation Laboratory has been demobilized, its staff of 3900 reduced to 15....
And...the Institute space occupied by the war projects has been largely recaptured,
and the temporary buildings, built primarily for war work, have been retained
by the Institute to aid us in handling the postwar overload of students.
- [Karl T. Compton
(MIT President, 1930-1948), from MIT President's Report, 1945-1946,
p. 5]
- The
edifice is so ugly...that it is impossible not to admire it, if that makes
sense; it has 10 times the righteous nerdly swagger of any other building
on campus, and at MIT any building holding that title has a natural constituency.
- [Fred Hapgood,
from his book, Up the Infinite Corridor: MIT and the Technical Imagination,
Reading, Mass., 1992, 106.]
- By
choosing Building 20 we [the Research Laboratory of Electronics] probably
got twice as much space as we would otherwise [had received] and I think we
were all very happy about it.
- [Albert Hill
(RLE, Associate Director, 1946-1949; and RLE, Director, 1949-1952), quote
from the videotape made for Generations: The Story of Building 20 an
exhibit held in the Compton Gallery in 1980. Videotape now in the MIT Institute
Archives, AC 48. MIT. Committee on the Visual Arts, Records, 1945-1980.]
- I
have a sense of affection and respect for this old building [Building 20]
and all that's happened in it over the years.
- [James R. Killian
(MIT President, 1948-1959), quote from the videotape made for Generations:
The Story of Building 20 an exhibit held in the Compton Gallery in 1980.
Videotape now in the MIT Institute Archives, AC 48. MIT. Committee on the
Visual Arts, Records, 1945-1980.]
- You
might regard it as the womb of the Institute. It is kind of messy, but by
God it is procreative!
- [Jerome Y.
Lettvin, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering, quoted in
an article by Simson Garfinkel, "Building 20: The Procreative Eyesore," from
Technology Review, 94 (November/December 1991), page MIT11.]
-
A short descriptive outline of the project is as follows: The construction
of a three-story temporary wood frame building meeting with the requirements
of the Radiation Laboratories to be located east of Radiation Laboratory Building
#22, and north of the present M.I.T> Swimming Pool. This structure together
with its connecting bridges has a total floor area of 196,200 sq. ft. ....
- [McCreery and
Theriault (architects), from AC4, MIT Institute Archives.]
-
Our floor construction consists of 2" plank, a layer of building paper, an
da 2 1/4 face log run birch, beach and maple finish flooring. The exterior
walls will have asbestos shingles on the exposed surface, underboarding rock
wool insulation bats and 1/4" plywood as the exposed inner surface.
- [McCreery and
Theriault (architects), from AC4, MIT Institute Archives.]
- Physically
the Laboratory occupies approximately 32,000 square feet in Wing A of Building
20.... An additional 5,000 square feet are devoted to the radar and intelligence
section of Project Meteor, a development of guidance systems in connection
with the M.I.T. guided missiles program, and there is an associated document
room containing reports amassed by the Radiation Laboratory. Although our
present housing leaves much to be desired, the Laboratory is extraordinarily
fortunate in the provision of materials and equipment for instruction and
research.
- [Julius A.
Stratton (first director of RLE, 1946-1949; and MIT President, 1959-1966),
from the report about the RLE in MIT President's Report, 1946-1947,
p. 155.]
- I
think that a lot of things were better because of Building 20. You had ample
space: a little more than you needed, rather than a little less, which is
the normal situation.
- [Jerome Wiesner
(RLE, Director, 1952-1961; and MIT President, 1971-1980), quoted in an article
by Simson Garfinkel, "Building 20: The Procreative Eyesore," in Technology
Review, 94 (November/December 1991), page MIT10.]
- More
than any other facility at MIT it [Building 20] is the breeding ground of
new programs.
- [Jerome Wiesner
(RLE, Director, 1952-1961; and MIT President, 1971-1980), quote from the videotape
made for Generations: The Story of Building 20 an exhibit held in the
Compton Gallery in 1980. Videotape now in the MIT Institute Archives, AC 48.
MIT. Committee on the Visual Arts, Records, 1945-1980. ]
- I
think it [Building 20] is a place where things start. We started all sorts
of aspects of things...with the military. We started the big Laboratory for
Nuclear Science at MIT. We started the Research Laboratory of Electronics.
We started what was called the Educational Research Center. ...you not only
start things but you also start [them] with a certain independence of mind.
It's this attitude that I think you should look for in a place.... It doesn't
matter that it's dirty and noisy and hot. The important thing [is] the people.
- [Professor
Jerrold Zacharias, (LNS, Director, 1946-1956), quote from the videotape made
for Generations: The Story of Building 20 an exhibit held in the Compton
Gallery in 1980. Videotape now in the MIT Institute Archives, AC 48. MIT.
Committee on the Visual Arts, Records, 1945-1980. ]
Return to
Celebrating the History of Building 20.