MIT Baker House Dorms

Alvar Aalto – MIT Baker House dormitories, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1947

I MIT dorms (also known as the Baker House) were designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto and are located within a building complex serving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
In 1946, MIT commissioned Aalto to design Baker House, the new student residence for students enrolled in their final academic year (the so-called Seniors Dormitory). The building was to be erected in Cambridge, on a long, narrow lot adjacent to the Charles River and the very busy Memorial Drive, a four-lane road with a notable visual and sound impact: Aalto, who had always been eager to create architecture that would serve the common man and his most intimate social and emotional needs, obviously considered this geographical location aberrant, and wanted the various student apartments not to overlook an incessant flow of cars, which was certainly psychologically incompatible with the activity of studying.

It is in this way that Aalto, starting from the design idea of ​​two staggered blocks arranged along an oblique axis, for the MIT dormitories gives life to a building block that develops on the ground according to a sinuous, sinusoidal trend, almost as if it were an undulating ribbon, and that manages to accommodate 353 students in single, double and triple rooms with a variously cuneiform plan (sometimes triangular, sometimes even trapezoidal). This very plastic and unconventional building, with brown refractory brick facades, closes off the industrial area at the back "like a rock backdrop" and manages to offer students a residential refuge where they can take shelter from the dangers of the surrounding area, characterized by almost unbearable environmental conditions (just think of the disturbance caused by the high traffic). Each room, in fact, has a pleasant view of the banks of the Charles River: Memorial Drive almost completely disappears from the view of the MIT student, who can observe it only from elongated (and not right-angled) views which are therefore decidedly more tolerable.
The façade, with its sinuous and irregular course that almost seems to metaphorically refer to the profile of the Charles River, strips the building of any institutional accent and breaks not only the monotony of the rest of the university buildings, rendered in a pretentious neoclassical style, but also the hyper-rational aridity typical of Rationalism.

To maximize lighting in the building complex, Aalto moved the canteen and cafeteria from the main building to a small, secluded, square-shaped wing adjacent to the entrance, overlooking the river and lit by a grid of cylindrical skylights open on the roof, similar to those used in the Viipuri library. Also very interesting is the solution for the stairs starting from the atrium, in two diverging and projecting ramps that rise along the rear facade of the building, creating an "ascending corridor" that, on the various floors, expands the common spaces and directs them geometrically: the original tile covering of the stairs, with its rich material textures, was unfortunately sacrificed for economic reasons with a more convenient plaster finish. Also for financial reasons, the creation of the shrubby covering of the southern facade of the main wing was abandoned, which – according to the designer's initial intentions – was to be adorned with climbing ivy.
Source Wikipedia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormitori_del_MIT