Alone among the more recent buildings on Longwood Avenue, the Medical Education Center looks toward the original Beaux-Arts-inspired white marble buildings of Harvard Medical School. In scale, materials, and articulation of bays, the four-story structure is in harmony with the classical wall it abuts, though its appearance is quite different. This austere facade provides a strong contrast to the skylit atrium within, consisting of a true forum—a meeting place for students and faculty. Marble busts of physician-educators on the corridors' balconies gaze down upon their descendents. A courtyard, formed with the exterior wall of the older building, frames the square tables set on a diamond patterned ground for outdoor congregating.