Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/621

Rh used in the Harvard Medical School, has been applied as being most consistent with the needs of the work. Here light and air are the essentials and this construction permits the recesses to be almost entirely of glass. At the corners are pavilions, which satisfy the eye as to stability. In the buildings nearest the river, which here present long facades, the pilasters will be two stories in height with the third story really constituting the frieze. In the structures farther back there is an attic above the establature. This succession of buildings increasing in height from front to rear is a distinctive feature of the group, and furnishes grades and lines that converge towards the massive octagon from which rises the drum and its culminating dome.

The courts will be flanked by the department buildings and the latter are to be linked together so as to afford circulation throughout all portions of the vast structure. It will be unnecessary for the student to go out of doors in passing from one exercise to another. The comparatively narrow buildings will receive light from both sides and in addition it is planned to place all the draughting rooms on the top floor. Here, hidden by the parapets, there will be the standard saw-tooth skylights. The unit system is used in the interior, so that partitions can be readily rearranged. The departmtmentsdepartments [sic] can be extended as more space is needed and in the rear less expensive construction can be used.

The frontage along the Charles River Esplanade is fifteen hundred feet, while the length along Massachusetts Avenue is about the same. Half of the site is to be devoted to the educational buildings; the other half, to the east, will be for the students and social facilities. It is the intention to develop a dormitory system surrounding the Walker Memorial, gymnasium, commons and other student features.

In the educational group the school of architecture will occupy the right angle at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and the esplanade, the bridge being really a part of the avenue. On the third side of the court will be civil engineering, running parallel with the esplanade. Continuing along Massachusetts Avenue will be the Pratt School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Within the interior court behind the Pratt School is the great auditorium. Parallel with the Pratt School and bordering the central court will be hydraulic engineering and