Word: pei
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Traffic, already confused and congested, could become worse. Pei has had a traffic study done and will work with Cambridge officials to case things. But the large implications of the complex's commercial impact remain unanswered. In ten or fifteen years, will the small stores along Mt. Auburn Street near the yards' be replaced with motels or restaurants? Or, perhaps the drawing power of the Library complex will simply move general commercial activity westward? The questions are as interesting as they are illusive, though Pei's insistence on eating places and souvenir shops shows that he is making...
Second, the Library complex is not going to be an isolated island. Had the Kennedy's wanted a rustic memorial, they would never have selected Harvard Square as the site. Pei's job of making the complex a part of the Square is going to be difficult. One way to make it easier, he seems to have decided, is to avoid a sharp demarcation between the city and the complex. Thus, the "support" facilities may act as a sort of transition area...
...third, Pei wants his "support" facilities (particularly the parking space) to help control the Library's impact on the Square itself. More than a half a million people are expected to visit the Memorial annually, and for that reason alone its effect on the Square is certain to be great...
...even with this sort of "support," Pei's problem in building a national memorial in the heart of Cambridge seems agonizingly difficult. Along the north side of the MBTA yards (the back of Brattle Square), he has to cope with motels, gas stations, and small stores, with their billboards and neon signs. "We must blend and defend," he says. "This is a great challenge...
...Library's riverfront neighbors--Harvard's Georgian Houses, the Monastery of St. Mary and St. John, and a line of six-story brick apartments--are friendlier. But just outside the yards' northwest corner, Baird Atomic Inc. has a block of three brick manufacturing buildings: another visual headache for Pei...