The Massachusetts Institute of Technology occupies a tract in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The campus spans approximately one mile (1.6 km) of the north side of the Charles River basin directly opposite the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.
The campus includes dozens of buildings representing diverse architectural styles and shifting campus priorities over MIT's history. MIT's architectural history can be broadly split into four eras: the Boston campus, the new Cambridge campus before World War II, the "Cold War" development, and post-Cold War buildings. Each era was marked by distinct building campaigns characterized by, successively, neoclassical, modernist, brutalist, and deconstructivist styles which alternatively represent a commitment to utilitarian minimalism and embellished exuberance.
Campus organization
Campus building naming conventions The geographical organization of the MIT campus is much easier to understand by referring to the MIT map, in online interactive, or downloadable printable form. There is also an MIT Accessibility Campus Map available for download, which is useful for mobility-impaired visitors.
Buildings 1–10 (excepting 9) were the original main campus, with Building 10, the location of the Great Dome, designed to be the ceremonial main entrance. The actual street entrance leads from 77 Massachusetts Avenue into the lobby of Building 7, at the western end of the "Infinite Corridor", which forms the east-west axis of the main group of buildings. Buildings 1–8 are arranged symmetrically around Building 10, with odd-numbered buildings to the west and even-numbered buildings to the east. In general, higher numbers are assigned to buildings as distance from the center of campus increases.
The east side of main campus has "the 6s", several connecting buildings that end with the digit 6 (buildings 6, 16, 26, 36, 56 and 66, with building 46 across the street from 36). The "30s" series buildings run along Vassar Street on the north side of main campus. Buildings that are east of Ames Street are prefixed with an E (e.g. E52, the Sloan Building); those west of Massachusetts Avenue generally start with a W (e.g., W20, the Stratton Student Center).
Buildings north of the Grand Junction Railroad tracks paralleling Vassar Street are prefixed with N, while those northerly structures that are also west of Massachusetts Avenue are designated with NW. Two buildings at the far west end of campus are designated "WW15" and "WW25". The prefix NE is used for buildings north of Main Street, even for structures actually located due north of other buildings designated with N.
Buildings that are far from the main campus are prefixed OC, for off campus. There are no buildings prefixed with S, since the campus is bordered at its southern edge by the Charles River.
To identify a particular room within a building, the room number is simply appended to the building number, using a "-" (e.g. Room 26–100, a large first-floor auditorium in Building 26). The floor number is indicated in the usual way, by the leading digit(s) of the room number, with a leading digit 0 indicating a basement location and 00 for sub-basement.
The practice of identifying buildings by number is a long-standing tradition at MIT. Although sometimes ridiculed as evidence of an "engineering mindset", and referred to as "a system that disorients outsiders", this system is somewhat logical, and allows members of the MIT community to quickly locate a room they may never have seen before. This numbering system contrasts with the building identification at other nearby colleges. For example, at Harvard University, knowing the location of "Maxwell-Dworkin" will not help in locating "Claverson" or "Larsen"—no matter how many years of experience one may have, one either knows these locations or has no idea where they may be. Under the MIT numbering scheme, community members will know approximately where Building NW95 must be, even if they have never been near there.
Most MIT buildings do have names, which can be found on many maps, or carved near the entrance, molded into a bronze plaque, or lettered onto a glass window. Many buildings are popularly known by name (e.g. "Kresge Auditorium"), even as individual rooms are identified by number (e.g. W16-100). Some locations have dual designations in common use (e.g. "Huntington Hall", also known as "10–250", which is an auditorium located on the second floor, under the Great Dome in Building 10). Building names can also be obtained from either the interactive online or downloadable MIT map.
There are numerous minor refinements, tweaks, and exceptions in the room numbering and naming, providing plenty of material for a trivia contest, or for sussing out would-be impostors. The student-written MIT guide How To Get Around MIT (HowToGAMIT) devotes almost 4 pages of small print to details of MIT geography.
Impact of spatial layout on collaboration Longitudinal bibliometric studies at MIT indicate that physical proximity among colleagues is associated with more co-authored publications and patents.Matthew Claudel, Emanuele Massaro, Carlo Ratti, Paolo Santi (2017). An exploration of collaborative scientific production at MIT through spatial organization and institutional affiliation. PLOS ONE. Complementing this, a communication-network analysis finds that physical distance reduces how often co-workers email or message each other.Raktim Basu, Andres Sevtsuk et al. (2022). Spatial structure of workplace and communication between colleagues. Social Networks. Because these results come primarily from observational designs, they offer a strong real-world relevance and large sample sizes but cannot, on their own, prove cause-and-effect as cleanly as controlled experiments. Taken together, however, multiple datasets observed over extended periods point to spatial configuration as one of several enabling conditions for innovation and productivity (conditions that also include institutional incentives, a collaborative culture, and regular opportunities for informal interaction).
The Infinite Corridor MIT’s campus is the home of several spaces that encourage these chance encounters. The Infinite Corridor, for example, is not only a busy passageway but also a conduit for meetings where people from different departments cross paths every day. This design helps break down departmental barriers and fosters informal exchanges.MIT News (2016). Architecture symposium explores campus: then, now, next.
Cafés Near Laboratories Cafés located near laboratories reinforce this dynamic. They create informal places where researchers can share ideas more freely, without the usual hierarchy of formal meetings.Angela Sun (2017). Identity and the University Campus, Albright Institute blog.
Interdisciplinary Spaces Some buildings, like the Stata Center, are planned specifically so that several research and teaching groups end up being colocated in one place.Thomas P. Hughes (2008). MIT Architecture and Values: Gehry’s Stata and Holl’s Simmons. History and Technology, 24(3): 207–220. Large atriums, winding corridors, and communal work areas encourage spontaneous discussions that blur disciplinary boundaries. This approach takes its cue from Building 20, which had a famously flexible layout and was known for sparking collaborations between different labs.Carl Solander (2017). Serendipity: When walls get in the way. ArchitectureBoston, Boston Society of Architects. The Stata Center continues that tradition with an innovative design that reflects MIT’s long standing culture of experimentation.Matthew Wisnioski (2013). Why MIT Institutionalized the Avant-Garde. Configurations, 21(1): 85–116.
“Serendipity” as a Principle These environments also encourage “serendipity,” a concept referring to the unexpected discoveries that come from unplanned interactions. Carl Solander highlights the role of “productive accidents,” which occur when people exchange ideas with no specific agenda but end up inspiring each other. Over time, MIT has integrated architectural experimentation that embodies an institutional commitment to environments conducive to unexpected discovery.
Thus, the spatial arrangement at MIT, with extensive corridors, strategically placed cafés, and areas that are designed to bring together several disciplines, is supportive of interdisciplinarity and innovation. From historical precedent and recent research, this layout appears to be a critical factor that supports effective collaboration.
Boston Tech (1865–1910)
Boston's Back Bay neighborhood was created from filled-in marshland along the Charles River over several decades. The City of Boston reserved several lots for churches, museums, and other community buildings. A lot bounded on the north and south by Newbury and Boylston streets, and to the east and west by Berkeley and Clarendon streets, was awarded to the Boston Society of Natural History and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
William G. Preston designed three buildings to occupy the site, although the original plan for an "MIT Museum" was never built. The Natural History Society building, completed in 1862, occupied the easternmost third, facing Berkeley Street. The MIT building, later called the Rogers Building, occupied the center and faced Boylston Street. The building was not opened until 1865 owing to delays because of the Civil War. The five-story Rogers building featured a "grand tetra-style Corinthian portico" modeled on the Duke of Wellington's remodeled Apsley House.
MIT quickly outgrew this space as new schools, departments, and laboratories were founded. In 1886, the five-story (original) Walker Memorial building housing the Physics and Chemistry departments was built in the space to the west of the Rogers building. This original Walker Memorial building, designed by Carl Fehmer, consisted of a more subdued, industrial arcade motif compared to the surrounding fashionable buildings. As Jarzombek suggests, "the choice of this style, even for such a prominent urban space, was clearly MIT's and a testament to its desire to promote the ideals of scientific professionalism." More annexes, given utilitarian names "Engineering Buildings A, B, and C" were designed in the same industrial manner, and built between 1889 and 1900 on a site south of the Trinity Church.One of MIT's engineering buildings became Grundmann Studios in 1893. cf. "Copley Hall, Proposed Temporary Walker Memorial." The Tech (MIT), December 30, 1907
After MIT's move to Cambridge in 1916, the original Rogers and Walker buildings were eventually torn down in 1939 to make way for the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company building. Their sibling structure, the Natural History Society building, has survived to the present day by hosting a succession of retail stores after its original tenant moved to the current location of the Museum of Science Boston in 1951. The city block that originally contained the Engineering Annexes is now the site where the John Hancock Tower stands. Thus, very few physical traces from MIT when it was "Boston Tech" remain in place in their original locations.
The names of Rogers and Walker were both re-applied to new MIT buildings (Building 7 and Building 50, respectively) erected across the Charles River in Cambridge, in 1939 and 1916, respectively.
The New Technology (1910–1940)
Impetus