Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Cambridge, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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At Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts stands as Le Corbusier's only building designed primarily for the United States, completed in 1962. The monumental structure of reinforced concrete and glass exemplifies the architect's brutalist aesthetic, designed in collaboration with Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente at Le Corbusier's Paris studio. Josep Lluís Sert, then dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design and a former member of Le Corbusier's atelier, oversaw on-site construction planning and had been crucial in securing the commission. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and represents one of only two Le Corbusier designs in the Americas, the other being the Curutchet House in La Plata, Argentina.