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Gordon McKay Laboratory

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1951, Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott. 9 Oxford St.

Located at the end of a long axis that was to extend to the repositioned Gannett House (NY3.2), Mallinckrodt Laboratory was designed as a key component in a master plan for the north campus devised by Charles Coolidge. Intended to be seen at a distance, the monumental raised Ionic portico of Mallinckrodt commands attention with a cupola echoing that of Faneuil Hall (GC4) in Boston. With the construction across Oxford Street of Gordon McKay Laboratory by the same firm in 1951, the master plan was abandoned. Gordon McKay, a five-story glass box, comfortably massed and sited to parallel the street, is an example of post–World War II modernism.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Maureen Meister
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Data

What's Nearby

Mallinckrodt Laboratory
Conant Hall
Science Center
Hoffman Laboratory
Lowell Lecture Hall

Citation

Maureen Meister, "Gordon McKay Laboratory", [Cambridge, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-NY10.2.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 327-327.

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