Cambridge

William James Hall

William James Hall, a grave stone to modernist architecture. This inhumane grid, the tallest on campus, is without working windows, has been (may still be) officially a "sick" building. For decades a health hazard due to the asbestos insulation, the interior is divided into offices without external views and floors without any common areas for normal sociability -- which is appropriate since the building is home to Harvard's social and behavioral sciences. This is where B.F. Skinner worked his rats; where animal experiments still take place; and where the partners of Harvard's old social relations program, anthropology and sociology, carry on after their ill-conceived divorce. (Cries of "come back Clifford Geertz, come back David Riesman" can still be heard late at night.)

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