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Usdan Student Center

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1970, Hugh Stubbins and Associates.

The hub of the upper campus, the Usdan Student Center rises at the base of the Rabb stairway, designed by Ben Thompson in 1968. Usdan occupies the site of the old Middlesex Reservoir. Hugh Stubbins, who had previously designed the Administration Quad in 1959, here connects five buildings around an open courtyard. The buildings contain student services, administrative offices, lounges, and recreation facilities. Skylights inside the courtyard brighten the cafeteria, located on the lower level. Expressed in massive brick walls and raw concrete, Brutalism characterizes the experience of this complex structure (in contrast to the walls of glass for the newer Shapiro Student Center).

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan
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Data

What's Nearby

Brown Social Science Center, Schwartz Lecture Hall, and Lemberg Hall
Brandeis University
Three Chapels
Shapiro Student Center
Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center, Irving Presidential Enclave, and Gryzmish Academic Center

Citation

Keith N. Morgan, "Usdan Student Center", [Waltham, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-WT8.3.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 476-477.

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