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In June 2002 the Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs vacated Coolidge Hall, 1737 Cambridge Street, and moved
to 1033 Massachusetts Avenue. This long-awaited move is part of
the large-scale project to provide a better and more effective work
environment to everyone at our Center and also to our colleagues
in other research centers focusing on specific countries or regions
of the world, as well as in other wings of the Government Department.
The Weatherhead Center expects to return to its 1737 Cambridge Street
address some time in mid-2005.
The Center was housed at Coolidge Hall for about a quarter century.
I am one of the very few members of the Center today who worked
in Coolidge Hall during all of those years. I will not miss the
obstructed vision in Coolidge Hall’s “acoustically challenged”
seminar rooms, where the expression “climate control”
was a year-round bad joke. In summer, I will not bemoan having to
choose between freezing in seminar rooms or shutting down the unacceptably
loud air cooling system to hear the speaker. No tears will be shed
for the Coolidge Hall elevators that broke down about once a week,
increasingly posing safety hazards to all users. There is little
nostalgia in leaving the Bowie-Vernon room, shaken by the rumble
of trucks and fire engines on Cambridge Street. Gone from my winters,
I hope, is the high risk of slipping on the icy, dangerous ramp
in front of Coolidge Hall.
We expect to be at 1033 Massachusetts Avenue for three years. The
wooden paneling in our new quarters has a touch of elegance, the
ambiance of which Coolidge never quite enjoyed. The flow of people
through the Center should be more effective once our glacial-speed
landlord (the University) installs proper signs so our offices can
be located with ease. Several offices are smaller (mine is 40 percent
smaller) than in Coolidge Hall, but once we occupy our share of
offices in the building’s mezzanine, some time this winter,
the Center will house the same number of people as it did in Coolidge
Hall. The most noteworthy change in the Center’s demography
shows that we now house more professors than ever. It can now be
revealed that this Center director’s worst nightmare for the
last two years was the fear that we would need to shrink by about
fifteen people and that we would not be able to serve faculty needs
appropriately. None of that happened.
In 2005 we will move again, to the “Knafel”
building, named in honor of Sidney Knafel, who provided the leadership
and resources to launch this creative solution to the manifold office
space problems that have plagued large numbers of professors and
students over the years. There will be another building of comparable
size across the street from Knafel. The Knafel building will also
be connected by a bridge to the thoroughly renovated house still
sited at 1727 Cambridge Street. The houses at 17 Sumner Road and
38 Kirkland Street will be preserved but also renovated as part
of the new Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS).
The Weatherhead Center will occupy space on the second floor of
Knafel, the first two floors of the house at 1727 Cambridge Street,
and the second floor of the other main building across Cambridge
Street.
The new buildings should have much better
meeting rooms to encourage the collective intellectual life of the
Center, such as our seminars, workshops, and conferences. The new
building should facilitate communication between faculty and students
and between specialists from related disciplines. It will permit
better clustering of Center programs to advance a shared intellectual
agenda. It will be well equipped with state-of-the-art technology
for use in classrooms, seminars, and lecture halls as well as to
obtain information through our new high-tech library of the twenty-first
century. The new case study-style lecture hall, in particular, should
be a joy for use in classes, conferences, and teleconferences. We
expect to foster inter-Center collaboration more effectively and
will continue taking steps to realize gains from proximity.
The Cambridge City Council has yet to authorize
the construction of a tunnel under Cambridge Street that would connect
the two new main buildings. I confess that I had never worried about
this authorization, but I was wrong. I had always thought that if
Harvard had not proposed to build a tunnel the City Council would
require it.
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This underground construction would permit
serving the new buildings (and others on nearby sites) from below
ground, uncluttering the nearby streets from service trucks. The tunnel
would direct pedestrians from Cambridge Street, reducing traffic jams
and preventing accidents. Now that it is clear that the University
will build these new buildings, I hope that the majority of the Cambridge
City Council will recognize that while the tunnel will serve the University,
it will also benefit the city and, most importantly, the neighboring
residents.
This is my seventh year as Center director and the last of my second
full term as director. In that time, the Center’s name has changed.
Now its address has changed. My hope for the future is that the Center’s
transformation will continue and deepen in order to better serve the
needs of its members and the intellectual and practical challenges
that we, as members of the University community, face in this new
century.
Jorge I. Domínguez
Director
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