The late Lawrence B. Anderson, one of MIT's most prominent architecture faculty members, is the subject of a multipart, continuous video tribute to be shown on MIT Cable over two days next week.
Broadcast of the 14-hour "Videodocumentary Memorial" will begin at 10am on Monday, May 11. The archival footage includes interviews with 38 distinguished MIT alumni/ae and colleagues from all over the world who describe him and remember his accomplishments in architectural education and professional practice. The project also includes footage of his home and his architectural projects, including those on the MIT campus, such as the Alumni Pool.
After the first half of the "Videodocumen-tary Memorial," "Tribute" -- a 30-minute highlight from the 14-hour project -- will be shown at 5pm on Monday. "Tribute" will repeat every half-hour until 10am on Tuesday, May 12, when the final seven hours of the "Videodocumentary Memorial" will be broadcast, concluding with a second showing of "Tribute" at 4:30pm on Tuesday.
Complete schedules and copies of the footage are available in the Rotch Library Visual Collections, Rm 7-304. On the schedules, people can see when portions of particular interest will appear in the program and plan their viewing or videotaping accordingly.
Among the participants are many present and former faculty members from the Department of Architecture, including Professors Stanford Anderson, department head (no relation to Lawrence); William Mitchell, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning; the late Albert Dietz; Imre Halasz; Jan Wampler, and Wayne Andersen. Also in the program are architecture alumni/ae including I.M. Pei, Walter Netsch, Charles Correa and Michael McKinnell; President Emeritus Howard W. Johnson; and Robert Campbell, architecture critic for The Boston Globe.
The project was created by the Foundation for Modern Architecture, Inc., with the support from the grants program of the Council for the Arts at MIT, the School of Architecture and Planning, the Graham Foundation of Chicago, and contributions from Kallmann McKinnell and Wood Architects, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Professor Anderson's colleagues, and MIT alumni/ae.
Professor Anderson, who died in 1994, retired in 1976 after 43 years of teaching, including 24 years as chairman and dean. As a leading proponent of modernist architecture, he devoted his academic career to transforming the School of Architecture -- this country's oldest such school -- into one of its most progressive.
In 1930, he received the SM in architecture degree from MIT and won the Paris Prize from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. As a practicing architect for 35 years, he was a principal of the firm Anderson Beckwith and Haible. Professor Anderson's counsel was sought worldwide on civic developments, campus master plans and government projects. He is best known in Boston for the program he wrote in 1961 for the Boston City Hall design competition that gave focus to the redevelopment of the entire City Hall area.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 6, 1998.
