We at the CHC were saddened to hear of the passing of a Cambridge icon, Frances Antupit, long-time proprietor of the landmark establishment Koby-Antupit Photography Studios. In her studio, Frances photographed architects, politicians, scientists, and activists, as well as local students, couples, and children.
Frances Antupit in the Boylston/JFK St studio, ca. 1960s. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Frances V. Antupit was born October 5, 1934, and raised in West Hartford, CT. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1957. Although Frances took only one photography course, she and a friend would sneak into the school’s darkroom after hours to develop film and make prints. Looking back, Frances laughed at her work from that time–mostly odd compositions of doorways and objects–calling it the “Ashcan School of Photography.”
Paul Koby Studio business card. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Frances soon moved to Boston, intending to pursue a graphic design career, but quickly discovered few positions available. She was interviewed by a Copley Square art director who noticed her eye for photography and suggested she apprentice to an established photographer. In the yellow pages, Frances found an ad for Paul Koby’s studio in Harvard Square. Koby initially dismissed her, but Frances soon convinced him of her abilities, and she began her training in lighting skills, darkroom techniques, and retouching.
View of Paul Koby Photography studio, above the Wursthaus in Harvard Square. Cambridge Historical Commission
Koby left the Boston area in the 1970s. In 1978, despite no formal business training, Frances decided to purchase the business. Along with the studio, Antupit inherited a large collection of Koby’s negatives and prints.
Chris Jennings by Frances Antupit, 1991. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
Unknown couple by Francis Antupit, date unknown. Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission
In 1997, Cambridge Savings Bank bought the building that housed Antupit’s studio, and all tenants were given notice to vacate. Frances later opened a new studio but despite her reputation as a creative photographer, the new location proved difficult for returning customers and walk-ins alike. Antupit began afresh in neighboring Belmont before finally retiring. In 2006, Frances donated her collection of photography materials to the CHC. The Koby-Antupit Portrait Collection contains photographic materials taken by and relating to Frances and her work in the studio and material created by Koby.
“There are no bad images; that’s just how your face looks at times.” -Henri Cartier-Bresson
Today it’s hard to imagine life without photography in all media, but the arrival of popular photography in the mid-19th century created a remarkable transformation in how we understood the world … something akin the arrival of telephones. Photography increased our vision and hence our perception of the world around us. Without photography, we wouldn’t talk about “snap-shots” (coined by Sir John Herschel in 1860), “photo,” “close-up,” “pin-hole,” flash bulb,” or “shutterbug.”
THE START OF IT ALL
Several inventors made advances towards photography in the 19th century, but Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) clinched it with his invention of the daguerreotype in France in 1829.
Image: Wikipedia
The first daguerreotype operation in Cambridge seems to have been Mr. Clark Moore’s mobile studio. Imagine the astonishment at the Cambridge Chronicle‘s office on Main Street when one December day in 1849 the editor looked out his window and saw this “Daguerreotype Saloon” pass by!
Cambridge Chronicle December 13, 1849
Cambridge Chronicle Building, 1855. Demolished by 1865 – Now 689 Mass Ave. Image: CHC
Mr. Moore went on to establish his permanent studio at the corner of Main and Essex streets.
Cambridge Chronicle September 20, 1851
Fast forward a decade and photography had really seized the public’s attention:
Cambridge Chronicle March 1, 1862
A search of the local newspapers reveals that in the decade 1850-1859 the word “daguerreotype” appeared 91 times. The word “camera” only six times and the word “photographic” nine times. By 1890-1899, “daguerreotype” appeared only 12 times, “camera” 317 times, and “photographic” 696 times.
Articles appeared coaching would-be photographers on how to take the best portrait photograph:
Cambridge Chronicle January 28, 1865
Next appeared witty descriptions of surviving the application of ice tongs during the process:
Cambridge Chronicle July 5, 1873
PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART
This technology opened a new way of creating the sort of dignified portraits that had been traditionally captured by trained portrait painters. In this vein, many photographers referred to themselves as artists.
Cambridge Chronicle September 16, 1899
Cambridge Chronicle February 20, 1869
Cambridge Chronicle September 16, 1899
Cambridge Chronicle March 1, 1884
G.W. PACH’s studio was founded by him and his brothers in New York City. Wildly successful, they subsequently opened branches in Cambridge, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They advertised heavily in Cambridge. Note the reference to his “Art Studio” in the advertisement:
Cambridge Directory 1880
Cambridge Chronicle October 31, 1896
From Boston Elevated Railway Collection: Workers making borings near Harvard Square. The Pach Bros. building (demolished in 1916) can be seen in the background (August 17, 1906).
In 1880, the Pach Bros. published a pamphlet “devoted to the interests of the photographic art …”, to “the building up of the glorious cause of art, and to convey such information as will lead to a greater interest in artistic efforts.”
Cambridge Chronicle January 3, 1880
COMPETITION FOR THE TRADITIONAL ARTISTS IN PORTRAIT PAINTING
“From today, painting is dead!” (Attributed to French artist Paul Delaroche commenting on daguerreotypes).
Most probably portrait photography substantially ate into traditional painters’ business. “By 1859, Charles Baudelaire was denouncing photography as ‘the mortal enemy of art.’ ‘If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions,’ Baudelaire fumed, ‘it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely.’” (Baltimore Sun)
Cambridge Tribune October 22, 1898
But it may also have given artists a boost. Now they could advertise their skill at painting portraits from photographs. And, since photography had captured the “realism” market, painters had more freedom to use looser styles, emphasizing qualities of light, and creating more atmospheric portraits.
Cambridge Chronicle July 26, 1884
The fine print: “we are connected with one of the best-known Photographic Establishments in Boston, and parties desiring portraits or Colored Work will be furnished with sitting free of expense.”
AND THEN CAME GEORGE EASTMAN “You press the button – we do the rest.”
Original Kodak camera. Image: Time Magazine
George Eastman launched the Kodak – the first successful roll-film camera – in 1888. “The camera was sold loaded with film, and both had to be sent back to the factory for processing. Over 13,000 cameras were sold in the first year. (http://www.alternativephotography.com/history-photographic-words/)
Cambridge Chronicle June 7, 1890
Other varieties of cameras soon hit the market:
Cambridge Chronicle April 23, 1887: “the detective camera”
Cambridge Chronicle October 3, 1891: “the Hawkeye camera”
Cambridge Chronicle May 22, 1897: “the Falcon camera”
Cambridge Chronicle May 7, 1898: “the Munroe Camera”
Cambridge Chronicle January 13, 1894: “the Photoret Snap Shot and Time exposure camera”
Image: Liveauctioneers.com
Photographic equipment was frequently sold in hardware stores:
Cambridge Chronicle June 12, 1897
Cambridge Tribune August 5, 1893
PHOTOGRAPHY CLUBS
The advent of Eastman’s Kodak camera advanced amateur photography substantially. Cambridge alone had seven different photographic clubs: The Old Cambridge Photographic Club (1892) was founded by Alice C. Allyn. Others included the YMCA Camera Club, Cambridge Camera Club (1888), Lechmere Camera Club (1896), Harvard Cambridge Club, the Tech. Camera Club, and Cambridge Heights Camera Club. Many of these clubs focused on landscape, or nature, photography.
Cambridge Tribune April 7, 1888
Butterfield was known for his landscape photographs:
Cambridge Chronicle September 25, 1886
Many women also took up photography, including Alice M. Longfellow, a daughter of the poet, “whose pictures of nature are a cherished heritage of the whole American people. … Miss Longfellow’s landscape views are noted for delicacy of gradation, poetic feeling and beauty of sentiment.” (Cambridge Chronicle November 16, 1889). Others were Delia Stickney and Cornelia Horsford.
One post can’t do justice to the range of popular, nature, and scientific photography in Cambridge in the late 19th century. Many well-known names and institutions are missing from this account. For instance, George Kendall Warren, who photographed Harvard graduates; Augustus Story, who was the chief photographer on the 1882 scientific expedition to New Zealand to observe the Transit of Venus; and the Harvard Observatory collection.
BUT FOR AMATEURS….
Move over George Eastman…. Here comes Edwin Land!
Image: pixscope.net
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.
Located at 239 Harvard Street in The Port neighborhood, the St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church (originally the Harvard Street Methodist Episcopal Church) has stood since before the American Civil War and has been a neighborhood landmark ever since.
239 Harvard Street, photo taken 07-2019.
Its story began when group of Methodists first congregated in 1835 with the hopes of gathering funds for their own place of worship. In 1843, a wooden structure was dedicated on the present site. The building was enlarged in 1851, only to be destroyed by fire in 1857. A second church was then built by Boston architect Harvey Graves. Suffering the same fate as the first, the wooden church burned to the ground three years later. Undeterred and learning their lesson, the church then hired Graves again to design a “fire-proof brick structure”. The cornerstone was laid in 1861 and the building was dedicated in 1862, this was the last church built in Cambridge before the Civil War.
1873 Atlas map showing church location.
Circa 1870s lantern-slide showing original church design.
The handsome brick church was built with the symmetrical, volumetric treatment of a Greek temple with the architectural details of Romanesque and Gothic treatments. The front walls project outward at the middle to form an entrance tower, which is divided by brick string courses into a deeply recessed entrance. Above, the church had a massive bell-tower with large clocks on all four sides. The tower was capped with a tasteful dome standing approximately 130 feet above the street.
Side view postcard image. Postcard part of CHC Postcard Collection.
Colorized postcard image. Postcard part of CHC Postcard Collection.
By 1910, the tower was turning heads not for its beauty, but as it would sway back and forth with the wind, all above nearby playgrounds and pedestrians below. In 1914, the trustees of the church decided that the best thing to do would be to take the steeple down. The removal of the steeple necessitated the removal of the old clock, that for so many years kept the people in that section of the city posted on the time of day, as it was the only public clock within sight of homes in that vicinity. The tower that for just over 50 years and had rung out notes of joy on holidays such as Christmas and the Fourth of July and on other days, slow and solemn tones as with the death of Lincoln, was demolished.
1970 photo of church taken as part of CHC Architectural Survey.
In 1941, the Harvard Street Methodist Church merged with Epworth Methodist, forming the Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church, which is located at 1555 Mass. Ave. That same year, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, formerly located at 211 Columbia Street, moved in. According to the “Historical Sketch of St. Bartholomew’s Protestant Episcopal Church of Cambridge”, prepared for the WPA Survey of State and Local Historical Records in 1936.
[The Church] “organized by the St. Andrew’s Association, an original group of seventeen Negroes who resented the segregation of Negro children in the Sunday School classes at St. Peter’s Church. Under the leadership of Mr. John S. Brown, the association held weekly meetings in the homes of various members for three months prior to the organization of the church. After the matter of segregation had been brought to the attention of Bishop Lawrence (William), who did not favor a separate church for negroes, he suggested that Mr. Brown and his people share worship with a small congregation of white people who were then worshipping at St. Bartholomew’s on Columbia Street. A group of forty negro worshippers marched into the church one Sunday morning, coming back every week with more and more members. The Bishop then advised turning the church over to the negro congregation with a white rector as a pastor. The members informed the Bishop that they desired a leader of their own race to represent them. In 1908, Rev. George Alexander McGuire, a native of Antigua, became the first settled pastor of the congregation”.
The church is still home to St. Bartholomew’s and it is an active congregation.
Sources:
Cambridge Chronicle Archives.
Historical Sketch of St. Bartholomew’s Protestant Episcopal Church of Cambridge
Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Volume 3: Cambridgeport, 1971.
Welcome back to our ongoing series featuring the staff and volunteer who work here at the CHC! This post introduces our photography consultant/photograph archives assistant, John Dalterio.
My name is Louis Dalterio, but everyone calls me by my middle name, John. I grew up in between Massachusetts and Connecticut with my mother, who was raising me on her own at the time. I was trained as an electrician in trade school, but upon graduating I discovered that I found no passion in that line of work. Instead, I wanted to be a film director.
All throughout high school I made skateboarding videos with my friends and consumed every film that the local Blockbuster sold as it went out of business. When I turned twenty I decided to attend community college to study film-making. A few months after enrolling, I attempted to make my first film with some Kickstarter funding and a small cast and crew from my local area. We discovered then that a Hollywood vision without Hollywood’s resources was nearly impossible to produce. After much deliberation, I decided to take the pragmatic route and shift my focus to a more simple and solitary art practice – photography.
In the Spring of 2012 I transferred to the Art Institute of Boston to fully pursue my interest in photography. The cityscape, chaotic and congested, could not be more different from the environment of my backwoods New England upbringing. For all its chaos, though, the city was rife with subject matter for the camera lens. Immediately I began wandering through side streets and back allies, searching for great moments to capture or interesting people to meet and make portraits of. After a few years of doing this while earning my bachelor’s degree, I had produced three photo series and two photobooks, which I am still fond of today: “Almagest,” and “Nayara.” Flipping through the pages of the image laden books, I recalled the excitement I felt when I first watched the dailies from the failed indie film. For a time, making and consuming photobooks became not only my hobby, but my sole obsession.
After the completion of my first photobook, I began working for the Cambridge Historical Commission as a photo restoration specialist. I was brought in to restore over 1,000 historical images that were to be used in the book, “Building Old Cambridge,” which was published by the MIT Press in 2016. The process of preparing the images took nearly a year and a half, which was a time of great perseverance and learning for me as I strived to produce high quality images on tight deadlines while balancing my school work. At the end of the book’s preparation process I left the commission to complete my bachelor’s degree at Lesley University, which had absorbed the Art Institute of Boston in the time since I had first enrolled. The move from Kenmore Square to Porter Square in Cambridge turned out to be a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle of Downtown Boston, allowing me to think more clearly and focus on the thing that I cared about most, my art.
As I neared the completion of my bachelor’s degree, I applied for and won an artist residency in Sweden, which was a magical experience that eventually led me to enroll in Lesley’s Master’s in Photography and Integrated Media program. This path would lead me away from photography for two years to focus on interactive installation art. Now, however, approximately one year after graduating from the master’s program, I find myself coming back to photography, and, thankfully, back to the Cambridge Historical Commission. This time, however, I am making the photos instead of restoring them.
Mornings at the Historical Commission are very special to me. As a slow riser, I am grateful for the ability to settle in with my coffee and pastry from the shop across the street and watch the light as it pours in through the windows, pouring over the loose documents that were left out from the previous day’s studies, the various busts of noble figures that sit atop the surrounding filing cabinets and shelving units, and, eventually, the historical objects that I place in its path. I am fond of the Historical Objects Collection at the CHC, with my favorite part not being a single object, but the subtle character that each object contains, and the stories they tell when illuminated.
In my time outside of the commission, I am a(n) freelance video producer, digital media specialist, art teacher, and artist. On a more personal level, I am a dog father to this sweet lady named Layla:
And step-dog father to this special lady named Lulu:
Joyce Chen (1917-1994) was born on September 12, 1917 in Beijing, China. Born into a wealthy family, she discovered her passion for cooking at a very early age. Her father, a railroad administrator and city executive, hired a family chef that cooked all of their meals. Chen learned about Chinese cuisine simply by watching their chef and other family members cook in their home kitchen. During the Chinese Communist Revolution, Chen and her family moved to the United States. Along with her husband Thomas Chen and their two children Henry and Helen, the family left Shanghai, China in 1949 and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Joyce Chen, image courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com.
While living near Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she frequently met Chinese students that missed the food they’d grown up with. Chen’s children attended Buckingham School and she would often cook food to be served at school events. Her meals quickly became popular among college students and the families at the Buckingham School. This inspired Chen to open her first restaurant in 1958, called “Joyce Chen Restaurant.” At this restaurant, she served both Chinese and American dishes to encourage customers to try new foods. She often served “buffet-style” meals, to allow customers to try samples of everything. She created a menu with both Chinese and English translations of her food and numbered the menu items for easier communication in her restaurants. This made it easier for customers who spoke different languages to order at her restaurant.
Joyce Chen, image courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com
Joyce Chen’s first restaurant at 617 Concord Avenue in Cambridge. Courtesy of Joycechenfoods.com
In 1967, Chen opened her second restaurant called “The Joyce Chen Small Eating Place.” That same year, Chen starred in Joyce Chen Cooks, her own cooking show on PBS that aired worldwide. This twenty-six-episode broadcast was filmed in the same studio as famous chef Julia Child’s show, and the two became good friends. Her business empire expanded, and two larger restaurants were built in the Boston area with an architecturally unique restaurant at 390 Rindge Avenue.
Circa 1974 image of Joyce Chen’s Restaurant. Photo from CHC Collections.
The restaurant, believed to have been designed by Allan Ahaknian, was built in 1974 and employed architecture not typical for Cambridge. Partially hidden behind a tall wooden fence to screen noise from the heavily trafficked Rindge Avenue, the structure featured minimal fenestration on the sides but employed large skylights to flood the interior with natural light. The Contemporary/Shed style restaurant was a common stomping ground for residents of Cambridge and beyond. The restaurant was purchased by Just-A-Start and was converted to a child-care facility in 1999. The remainder of the lot was filled with townhomes for moderate-income, first-time homebuyers. In 2005, the structure was demolished for eight additional units of affordable condominium units. As it was not yet 50+ years old, it did not qualify for protection under the Demolition Delay Ordinance.
Circa 1984 image of Joyce Chen’s Restaurant at 390 Rindge Avenue. Image from CHC Collections.
1978 Aerial Image of 390 Rindge Ave.
2018 Aerial image of 390 Rindge Ave. Note: the building has been demolished and replaced with housing.
While her restaurants are all now closed, the impressions of Joyce Chen’s legacy can be seen in almost every Chinese-American restaurant in the country today and in the enduring popularity of “Peking ravioli.” Also, her cookbooks and branded cooking utensils can be found in kitchens all over the world.
Images and some information on Joyce Chen courtesy of joycechenfoods.com
The Harvard Undergraduate Science Center at 1 Oxford Street, is a pre-cast concrete behemoth designed by Josep Lluís Sert (1902-1983) the Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design at the time.
Staff photo of Harvard Science Center (1 Oxford Street) April 2019.
Designed in 1970 and completed just two years later, the Brutalist structure integrates its siting along the three major streets in which it is framed: Kirkland, Oxford and Cambridge Streets and is a visual link between Harvard Yard and the North Yard. The design terraces upward from the pedestrian mall overpass at Cambridge Street to limit the massing and shifts the bulk of the structure back (north) with just a more pedestrian-scaled section fronting the mall. A central spine runs down the building which visually serves as an upwards staircase and terminates at a nine-story tower.
Approximately two-fifths of the cost of the $25 Million building centered around the two un-adorned concrete towers on the western and eastern walls of the Science Center. The non-descript boxes are water-cooling towers intended to service not only the Center itself, but all buildings in the North Yard. The towers are connected by a massive pump room in the basement. The tarantula-like steel girders seemingly creep over the lecture hall area and serve to support the roof of the auditorium.
It is believed that Sert took inspiration for the design from his former mentor, Le Corbusier, who designed the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard just ten years prior. The Science Center was influenced by an unbuilt project, The Palace of the Soviets, designed for Russia by Le Corbusier in 1931 and worked on by Sert as a young architect. The current Science Center borrows the steel girder and cable vocabulary from the unbuilt Palace of the Soviets along with the use of pre-cast concrete panels to somewhat pay homage to his mentor. Sert loved the use of concrete as an “honest and muscular material that could be molded into any shape” and liked to set splashes of bright color against its textured grey – “like a parade of elephants and parrots”.
LeCorbusier’s Model of the Palace of the Soviets (unbuilt)
Aerial of the Palace of the Soviets (unbuilt)
Harvard later outgrew the Science Center and hired firm Leers-Weinzapfel Associates Architects in 2004 to expand the science village. Three vertical additions of minimal steel-framed glass volumes contrast in materiality from the concrete panel main structure yet echo elements of the initial design. The verticality of the glass panes creates a visual rhythm with the vertical grooves in the older precast concrete panels. At the interior, splashes of color and light flood the spaces and the newly dedicated museum space is visually connected to a light-filled terrace.
Rendering of completed additions by LWA Architects.
Completed additions by LWA Architects.
Interior courtyard with new addition by LWA Architects.
Completed in 1960, the Loeb Drama Center at 64 Brattle Street stands as one of Cambridge’s greatest examples of Modern Architecture. The structure is human-scaled, made of regional materials and is a sensitive addition to its residential and commercial neighbors along Brattle Street. The scale of the building was reduced to blend in with adjacent heights and the use of New England waterstruck brick is a nod to the Harvard and Radcliffe buildings nearby. Exposed concrete serves as a sort of frame to the delicate ornamental grille which provides a lace-like effect, enhanced further at night when the light from inside the building shines through.
Architect Hugh Stubbins wanted the theater to be architecturally exciting, while still serving as a backdrop to the purpose of the building, the arts. Stubbins was quoted as saying, “the auditorium should please the imagination in such a way as to release it, not captivate it” and later went on to reference examples of recent museums and art galleries erected by architects to overshadow the art within them.
The building opens right off the sidewalk of Brattle Street by the way of deep setbacks off the first floor, forming a porch-like or arcade feeling. The sides of the building open to a garden court on one side and a spacious terrace on the other. The travertine flooring in the lobby extends gracefully to the brick-paved courtyard, contained by a red brick serpentine wall.
The theater was unveiled as a mechanical marvel as the first fully-automatic and flexible theatre in the United States. The audience’s position in relation to the stage, along with the position and shape of the stage itself could be altered between three main configurations: theater-in-the-round, proscenium, and arena seating, all possibly during the same performance. Yale’s noted stage technician and theater design engineer, George C. Izenour worked with Stubbins to integrate lighting, rigging and staging into an automated and hydraulic lift system, which could be altered and staged by just two people in mere minutes.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
Courtesy of Architectural Forum, 10-1960.
The Loeb Drama Center is now home to The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University, which collaborates with artists around the world to develop and create work in new ways. To learn more about A.R.T. and their upcoming shows and events, check out their website at: https://americanrepertorytheater.org/
Color slide courtesy of CHC Staff.
Historic photos courtesy of Radcliffe College Archives and CHC slides.
For today’s #ModernMonday posting, we are highlighting the Hayden Memorial Library at MIT.
Located on Memorial Drive, the library is named after Charles Hayden (1870-1937) an MIT alum (1890) who studied “mining investment.” Hayden was a philanthropist who donated vast sums of money for the construction of buildings including; the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science, and the Hayden Memorial Library at MIT to name a few. Hayden was involved with philanthropy most of his life. During World War I, he donated $100,000 per year to the American Red Cross. Hayden’s largest philanthropic effort came following his death in 1937 when his will directed roughly $50,000,000 ($853 million in today’s dollars) from his estate be used to create a foundation to advance the education and “moral, mental, and physical well-being” of boys and young men. The organization, known today as “The Charles Hayden Foundation”, distributes grants of between $10,000,000 and $20,000,000 annually to support programs for children in the Boston and New York metropolitan areas.
Charles Hayden in 1934, from the American Museum of Natural History Digital Special Collections.
Architectural drawing included in Architectural Record, Nov. 1946.
Architectural drawing included in Architectural Record, Nov. 1946.
Architectural drawing included in Architectural Record, Nov. 1946.
The Hayden Memorial Library at MIT was unveiled beginning in 1946 when the Architectural Record highlighted the design of the building. The building was designed by Ralph Walker (MIT Class of 1911) of Voorhees, Walker, Foley and Smith Architects and was completed in 1951 in a Post-WWII Art Moderne Style. Walker was called “The only other honest architect in America” by Frank Lloyd Wright, and “Architect of the Century” by The New York Times when he received the Centennial Medal of Honor from the American Institute of Architects. He was most well known for his Art Deco buildings in New York. “Three years after accepting his award from the New York Times, he resigned from the AIA amid controversy surrounding a member of his firm who was accused of stealing another firm’s contract. Though he was later cleared of all wrongdoing and reinstated, he was apparently never the same afterwards. Ten years later, in 1973, Walker shot himself with a silver bullet, only after destroying his AIA award. His original firm still exists under the name HLW International, but as Walker and his wife had no children, all that remains of his great legacy are the buildings he created” (Ralph Walker: Architect of the Century).
Hayden Library in 1968, photo part of CHC Survey files.
Hayden Library in 1968, photo part of CHC Survey files.
The Hayden Library inaugurated the expansion and modernization of MIT’s academic facilities and was one of the first truly Modern buildings on the campus. At the time, vast amounts of technical literature – generated largely by the war – had to be housed, and facilities had to be updated to accommodate recent advances in conservation, storage, and photographic reproduction. The Hayden Library would have to meet those demands. The protruding two-story glass bays allow ample natural light into the library and the limestone façade serves as a nod to the older Beaux Arts MIT buildings nearby.
Photo of Hayden Library courtesy of University of Michigan Digital Archives.
Utilizing the Hayden Library’s initial design goal of “flexibility”, Shepley Bulfinch re-imagined the building as the hub of the MIT Library System in 2012 and it now houses collections for science, engineering, humanities, music, and archives.
The 1951 building remains as a great example of Modern architecture in Cambridge and shows how good architectural design can be timeless and adapted to meet future needs.
On this day in 1948, the Land Camera first went on sale. Developed by the Polaroid Corporation, and named for its co-founder Edwin H. Land, this mechanism was the first of its kind—a camera with instant film.
Images from a Polaroid Land Camera catalog, ca. 1950s
Polaroid was co-founded in 1937 by scientist and inventor Edwin H. Land and Harvard physics professor George W. Wheelwright III. The company was originally known for its polarizing sunglasses, a product Land had invented following his self-guided research in light polarization. The name “Polaroid” was coined by Professor Clarence Kennedy of Smith College, a mutual friend of Land and Wheelwright.
Advertisement for Polaroid “sun goggles” and sunglasses appearing in the Cambridge Chronicle, 11 July 1940
Pair of Polaroid sunglasses from the CHC Objects Collection with case and informational insert, ca. 1930s-1940s
Land studied chemistry at Harvard but left without a degree and moved to New York City in the late 1920s. Without the backing of an educational institution and laboratory, he invented a system of instant in-camera photography—Polaroid film.
Land, shown here with an early instant photograph, first demonstrated Polaroid’s instant photography system to the public in 1947. Bettman/CORBIS
The Land Camera was constructed in a similar way to traditional film cameras: light entered a lens and was reflected onto light-sensitive film, recording a negative image. Where the system differed was in its delivery of the print. Land’s system contained both the negative film and a positive receiving sheet joined by a reservoir. This pack held a small amount of chemical reagents that started and stopped film development. Rather than sending the exposed film off to a laboratory to be developed, consumers could produce a developed photograph in one minute or less.
Edwin Land at the Polaroid Corporation in 1940
Polaroid originally manufactured sixty units of the Land Camera to be sold during the 1948 holiday season. Fifty-seven were put up for sale at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, all of which were sold on the first day.
We are happy to announce the addition of 28 images to our CHC Flickr account. These images come from the Lois M. Bowen Collection. Bowen was a Cambridge-based photographer and entrepreneur who owned a camera shop, Cambridge Camera and Marine, in Harvard Square from the 1940s to 1995.
Kodak film cannister owned by Lois M. Bowen, ca 1960s
Ms. Bowen was a freelance photographer for several organizations and publications around Cambridge and Boston, including The Architects’ Collaborative and Architectural Forum Magazine, as well as advertising agencies and admissions publications for colleges and universities.
Cover: “Architectural Forum: The Magazine of Building”, June 1964
Pages from “Architectural Forum: The Magazine of Building” featuring the work of Lois M. Bowen, June 1964
Bowen’s work was primarily focused on architecture, but her photographic subjects spanned the Northeast and included documentation of her own life and community.
View of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, 4 September 1978
Contact sheet: images of Strawberry Banke, October 1966
In addition to the photographic materials there are business papers and documents as well as personal correspondence and ephemera.
Interior view of Cambridge Camera and Marine, ca. 1960s
Interior View: 14 Old Dee Road in Cambridge, ca. 1960s
