Category Archives: Massachusetts

On the edge of campus at N. Pleasant Street and Massachusetts Avenue is UMass’s Newman Catholic Center. It opened in April 1963. The Newman Center is one of hundreds across the country, existing as spiritual centers for Catholic students attending a secular … Continue reading →

Adjacent to UMass Amherst is the First Baptist Church. Like a majority of buildings on the nearby campus, the church dates to the mid-century, specifically 1962. The design is typical for many suburban style protestant churches of the era, entered … Continue reading →

According to the Amherst Archives and Special Collections, the building was designed by the architect Benjamin Thompson in 1967-68. Thompson was a founding member of the influential The Architects Collaborative, along with its most famous member, Walter Gropius. The design is … Continue reading →

The Merrill Science Center of 1966-68 is sits on a sloping hillside near the main quadrangle of the Amherst College campus. It was designed by Campbell, Aldrich and Nulty, the prolific firm out of Boston. Many readers will remember them best as … Continue reading →

Robert Frost Library on Amherst College’s campus is one of the few modernist structures among a largely more staid collection. It encloses one end of the West, or First Year, Quad. The architects were O’Connor and Kilham of New York, a firm … Continue reading →

New Quincy, a component of the larger Quincy House complex, was designed in 1958-59 by the Boston firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott. The firm also designed Leverett Towers nearby. New Quincy is a more modest height (eight stories including … Continue reading →

The Leverett Towers complex of 1959-60 is Harvard’s first high rise residential structure and occupies a prominent location just off the intersection of Memorial Drive and Dewolfe Street. The towers are coed dorms and also include some offices and classrooms. … Continue reading →