The Stata Center at MIT is nearly complete (more info). I'm a Gehry fan, so I think that it's rather cool to get a Gehry building on campus. However, looking at the current photos, it doesn't seem as striking as I thought it would. Perhaps large amounts of brick-color, or bad angles in the camera shots, but it doesn't stand out like, say, the Disney Center in LA.
On a slightly related note, the new 2006 Brass Rat design has been announced, which I mention because it's the first ring I know of where you join two rings together to spell out the secret message.... MIT. The message is kinda lame, the idea is cool, in a dorky way appropriate to an MIT ring. Strangely, the report also says the ring has "ILTFP" inscribed on it. Did MIT suddenly get a whole lot nicer to its students? Did the school suddenly start caring about student life? Every ring I've seen has IHTFP, and if there were a "secret" message to be spelled out, that would certainly be a good candidate.
Comments (2)
I find this bit rather curious:
This year’s seal shank featured two men, to the delight of the crowd. The genders of the two figures on the official MIT seal are often points of contention each year, with some portion of each class wanting the seal to be updated to reflect the nearly equal population of undergraduate men and women on campus.
So, y'all MIT kids "delight" in implicit sexism, or what?
Posted by metamanda | March 22, 2004 12:34 PM
Posted on March 22, 2004 12:34
I found that odd as well, though the author chose to make the wording strange. Considering that the ring committee is female-dominated, read into it whatever you wish. The 2006 committee was 6:4 female:male (1999 was 9:1).
Also, I checked the ring design on the web. It turns out that it does say IHTFP, not ILTFP:
http://web.mit.edu/2006ringcomm/Webpages/RingDesign.htm
The starry night theme looks kinda neat.
Posted by kwc | March 22, 2004 1:13 PM
Posted on March 22, 2004 13:13