{"nrhp_refnum":"78000435","name":"Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"19 Prescott St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cambridge","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.373248775000036,"lon":-71.11412371499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-04-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A reinforced concrete arts building at 19 Prescott Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, completed in 1963 and designed by Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret).","why_significant":"It is the only building by Le Corbusier on the North American continent, and one of the last he completed before his death in 1965. It shows his mastery of form, space, color, texture and light, and it drew world-wide attention and won the 1964 Harleston Parker Medal. Its design history is well documented because all sketches and studies survive.","narrative":"Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is a reinforced concrete building on Harvard's campus in Cambridge, set between Prescott and Quincy Streets beside the Fogg Art Museum and the Faculty Club. Completed in 1963 to designs by Le Corbusier, it has a basement, four main stories and a penthouse studio. A central ramp crosses the third-floor level and leads visitors straight to the exhibition space, passing through a two-story open gallery. Free-form studio wings project from a cubical central volume placed diagonally on the site, and the proportions follow Le Corbusier's Modulor system. Round concrete piers, sun baffles, thin concrete mullions and glass-brick mark the facades. The building is significant as the only structure by Le Corbusier in North America and as one of his last completed works. It received the Harleston Parker Medal in 1964 and has been widely published and studied by architects and scholars.","period_of_significance":"1963","architect_builder":"Charles Edouard LeCorbusier Jeanneret","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as occupied, in educational use, and privately owned by Harvard; some offices were created by unobtrusive later remodelings.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:53.512267-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/83/7958/63795883/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/78000435.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78000435/aec7b9e6b0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78000435/aec7b9e6b0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Bobak Ha'Eri","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2023-0323-Harvard-Carpenter_Center_for_the_Visual_Arts-02-East_view.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bobak Ha'Eri</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2023-0323-Harvard-Carpenter_Center_for_the_Visual_Arts-02-East_view.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63795883","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_Center_for_the_Visual_Arts","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2940137"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/carpenter-center-for-the-visual-arts-78000435/"}