麻省理工学院克雷斯吉礼堂

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原名称：AD Classics: Kresge Auditorium

设计单位：埃罗·沙里宁及合伙人建筑事务所

位置：美国

分类：公共设施

内容：实景照片

建筑设计负责人：埃罗•沙里宁及合伙人

合作人：Anderson and Beckwith

工程师：Amman and Whitney

摄影师：Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Flickr user 庶民小文™, Fl

这是由芬兰裔美国建筑师埃罗•沙里宁设计的克雷斯吉礼堂，该项目尝试在建筑形式和符合麻省理工学院形象进行技术创新。这个雕塑感的建筑将是麻省理工学院校园文化、社会和精神内核的一部分，承担着集合交流的功能。克雷斯吉礼堂是沙里宁大胆、主张平等的建筑设计作品之一，代表了美国战后的乐观时代精神。

项目位于剑桥马萨诸塞大道，麻省理工学院建筑学院院长邀请埃罗·沙里宁设计场地内的礼堂、非教派教堂、学生会、广场。建筑师期望校园的这个区域能鼓励学生举办会议、宗教事务以及艺术表演或展览。学生会原设计为垂直于Mass大道而布局，从而形成广场的边界，但并未得到实现。沙里宁设计的广场，是坡道停车场下的一块带铺装和绿化的三角形平地，也因简单遭到了拒绝。而克雷斯吉礼堂和麻省理工学院教堂两个建筑采用了大胆而简单的几何形式，两个建筑相对而立，中间是宽敞的开放空间。材料与形式都精雕细琢，反映了建筑功能。教堂的内向性、没有窗的砖墙外表与礼堂的外推力、空透形成了对比。

尽管该技术已在从20世纪20年代从欧洲引进，克雷斯吉礼堂是美国第一个大型薄壳混凝土建筑。优雅的钢筋弧形混凝土屋顶由一个1/8的球体表面形成，主要有三个穹隅支撑。穹顶覆盖的三角形面积约有半英亩，最高点约五十英尺高。屋顶主要采用3英寸、7英寸厚的结构元件，跨度为113英尺。
对该建筑的评价与反映有着强烈的分歧。在规划过程中，大多数国家建筑设计媒体对其抱有极大热情。然而，项目完成后遭到批评者批评它未能融入到场地，有结构方面的缺陷，其建筑形式与礼堂的功能不适应，建筑色调过冷、缺乏暖色调等。然而，1956年的建筑实录上，克雷斯吉礼堂被评为第15届最显著建筑，并于2008年被列为波士顿十大建筑之一。

译者：筑龙网 艾比

Kresge Auditorium, designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, was an experiment in architectural form and construction befitting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s focus on technology and innovation. This feat of sculptural engineering serves as a meeting house and is part of the cultural, social, and spiritual core of MIT’s campus. Kresge Auditorium is one of Saarinen’s numerous daring, egalitarian designs that captured the optimistic zeitgeist of Post-war America.

The Dean of MIT’s architecture school engaged Saarinen’s office to design an auditorium, a non-denominational chapel, a student union, and a connecting plaza on a site on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. The goal was to define an area on campus that would encourage students to organize meetings, religious services, and art performances or exhibitions. The student union design, which would have run perpendicular to Mass Ave to create a boundary wall for the plaza, was never realized. Saarinen’s design for the plaza itself, with triangular swatches of paving and grass atop below grade parking, was rejected in favor of a simple lawn. The bold yet simple geometric forms of the two built projects- Kresge Auditorium and the MIT Chapel- face each other across an ample open space. Materially and formally each is crafted to reflect its function. The inward-looking chapel is a windowless brick extrusion in contrast to the outward thrust and transparency of the auditorium.

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), a renowned post-war designer of both the sublime and the everyday, captivated the public and transformed the architectural profession with his designs of high profile projects such as TWA terminal, Dulles International Airport and the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Furniture products created in collaboration with Charles and Ray Eames, as well as his work for Knoll, changed the technology and visual language of industrial design and are still popular today. Although best known for his soaring sculptural forms, the aesthetic of his work varied, with a number of his projects strongly influenced by the International Style. After his father and collaborator, Eliel Saarinen, passed away in 1950, Eero opened his own architecture practice and completed many notable projects before his untimely death at the age of 51. Throughout his career, Saarinen believed “the purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on Earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence.” [1]

Although the technology had arrived from Europe beginning in the 1920s, Kresge Auditorium was the one of United State’s first large scale thin-shell concrete buildings. The elegant reinforced concrete dome comprises one eighth of the surface of a sphere and is primarily supported by three pendentives. The truncated dome encloses a triangular space approximately a half acre in area that the reaches a height of fifty feet. With the primary structural roof varying between only 3 and 7 inches thick, the span is 113 feet. Thickened edge-stiffening beams along the perimeter define the roof and bound large transparent facades. A second 2 1/2″ thick nonstructural layer of lightweight concrete was applied as a substrate for roofing.

The experimental project faced numerous trials during and after construction. Originally intended to be sustained entirely on the three main supports, the deflection of edge beams was larger than anticipated and necessitated the addition of structural vertical mullions behind the windows. Appropriating conventional roof cladding material to this innovative double curved surface also proved a challenge. Marble tiles and lead-coated copper sheets were considered for the roofing material but rejected due to cost or performance issues. A system of fine limestone chips in a liquid acrylic polymer binder was eventually selected to coat the shell resulting in a pristine, smooth white casing. By 1963 differential thermal movements had led to cracking, delamination, and finally failure of the original roof system. Square lead sheets were installed. Water infiltration through the lead cladding precipitated severe deterioration due to the freeze-thaw cycle. In 1979 concrete and reinforcement of edge beams near each main support was replaced. At the same time standing seam copper roofing was put in place and remains to this day. [2]

From eye level, the attenuation of the form to three points gives a slender reading to the expansive container. The entry brings visitors into an elongated lobby on the level midway between the main auditorium and the smaller theater below. Additional spaces on the lower level include rehearsal areas, a lounge, dressing rooms, and a carpenter shop.

Though acoustics did not drive the overall form of Kresge, it shaped interior modifications that optimize the experience of performances and allow simultaneous events. The stage in the main auditorium floats on a fiberglass pad that deadens potentially disruptive vibrations from transferring to the theater below. Oak wall grating with absorptive backing, polychrome fabric seats and an array of curvilinear suspended panels calibrate the sonic environment. Even with these interventions, the domed form is legible from the interior.

Critical response was strongly divided. Most national design and construction periodicals followed the planning process, most with great enthusiasm. Yet the completed project faced strong detractors who criticized it for failing to relate to context, having structural shortcomings, and being an inappropriate form for an auditorium [3]. A 1955 Architectural Record article explicated the functional success of the building but found the austere material palette lacked warmth [4]. Nevertheless, in 1956 Architectural Record listed Kresge Auditorium as the 15th most significant building from the preceding hundred years [5], and in 2008 it was listed by the same periodical as one of Boston’s top ten buildings.