Boston Design Week 2021: MIT Campus Art and Architecture Tour

September 30, 2021
Event Types
Public Art Tour
Special Program
Matt Johnson's Untitled(Swan) sculpture of a warped bent metal train track is pictured in front of MIT campus buildings.

Matt Johnson, Untitled (Swan), 2016. Bent train track, 120 x 138 ½ x 34 2/4 inches (25.4 x 351.79 x 87.63 cm). Photo by Charles Mayer.

Join MIT List Visual Arts Center on a public art tour showcasing art and architecture highlights across campus. View architecture highlights with accompanying artworks on this tour of the List Center’s public art collection of renowned contemporary artists featuring I.M. Pei, Sol LeWitt, Frank Gehry, and newly installed works by Alicja Kwade, Agnieszka Kurant and more.

MIT’s Percent-for-Art Program, administered by the List Visual Arts Center, now allocates up to $500,000 to commission art for each new major renovation or campus construction project. The policy was formally instituted in 1968, but earlier collaborations between artists and architects can be found on MIT’s campus. When architect Eero Saarinen designed the MIT Chapel in 1955, sculptor Theodore Roszak designed the bell tower and sculptor Harry Bertoia designed the altar screen. In 1985, architect I.M. Pei and artists Scott Burton, Kenneth Noland, and Richard Fleischner collaborated on Percent-for-Art projects for the Wiesner building and plaza, home to the MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Media Laboratory.