the meandering walk on the Mass Ave side of the Library that ends in a parking lot / cab stand nee front entrance to the school.
It's less a front entrance than an elite parking lot for high rolling profs like Dershowitz whose contract probably stipulates he gets a deeded space x meters from their offices in Pound. Note all those spots are reserved. I've never seen cabs standing there.
The 2 sided yard area also barely works (despite the park layout itself being swell) due to the science buildings turning their backs on Law's library and Hauser pretty much refusing to talk to anyone.
Agreed; it would have been ideal for HLS to have surrounded Holmes Field (the large Yard-like area that borders Langdell (the law library) and Hauser). The science faculties aren't moving, though, and are fairly self-contained, orienting themselves across Oxford St. There's actually a movement among them to evict HLS to Allston because they claim they need more space closer to the university that self-contained HLS is hogging solely for the prestige of a Cambridge address and closer proximity to Harvard Square cafes. Fortunately, the law school has too much clout to ever let this happen; if the science faculties were victorious, they'd probably dump some glass sheds on Holmes Field and god knows what other technical equipment all over the rest of the LS campus.
The idea that there's going to be a "Law Yard" where the east wind of Pound is now is somewhat ludicrous; it would be a tiny space and not really unite many of the LS campus buildings. If only HLS could swap some buildings on the opposite side of Holmes for that NW corner space...
None of the buildings (outside those actually attached to the main Library structures) are in anyway that I can remember complements in style, function or feng shui...
Not really. There's a strong Richardsonian Romanesque current though (Austin, Hauser, and the Korean church that's on HLS property but is really separate in every way from Harvard), and Langdell is such a presence that it virtually creates its own classicist counterweight. Together they all have at least convey a sense of brooding gravitas. The Gropius complex ("the strip mall dorms") is what really doesn't belong, significant though it is. The Stern building is trying to make the new structure an amalgam of all three of these idioms; unfortunately, its awkwardly off-center location makes it less than ideal for synthesizing the law school architecturally.
i don't get this (probably misunderstanding you). the core of Harvard Yard predates most of the commercial buildings of the square. moreover, the commercial buildings have been steadily growing upwards over time, by additions, replacements, and new construction.
moreover the grad non-resident hall (whatever the name) and the library that corners the yard over where the gas station on Mass ave (now hotel) was both do a fair job of looming over or at least meeting eye to eye the commercial buildings -- and the main Library building is significantly more massive and tall, and does also form the shell of the yard.
The CORE of the Yard predates most of the square buildings, but the outer shell of buildings (closest to Mass. Ave.) date mostly to the early 20th century (some came as late as the 30s, I think). These were built much later than the 5-story buildings east of the Holyoke Center and, being much shorter, clearly effect a conscious contrast between the commercial buildings and the campus ones. The desire here, I think, is to make as much of a distinction as possible between the university (as a place of quietude and contemplating scholarship) and the city outside. The effect on the person crossing the street is to make him or her not think that they are merely going to the other side of Mass. Ave., but into another realm entirely. It's separation of uses reinforced by the massing of the architecture.
As far as the latter structures you mentioned - I agree they reinforce the two-sided street wall on Mass Ave. Maybe that's why Harvard wanted a lower structure when Wyeth Hall (the first building you refer to) is taken down. I remember an apartment building on Kirkland St. that was taller than its Harvard GSD replacement...another good example of this theory in action.
are you considering that gown to a very large degree owns town (at both ends, btw)? the Square area is marbled with HU owned stock -- more owned than not. there are two other possibilities i can think of off the top of my head: the school would rather not call attention to its commercial and residential holdings by appearing to to be everywhere (i.e. better to look constrained than to be constrained), or perhaps the corporation simply is methodical about what it consumes, working on a coarse level. probably lots of other perspectives too...
Many of the buildings in Harvard Square (and their counterparts on the campus across the street) were built at a time when Harvard did not, in fact, control construction outside its campus walls. Reinforcing the distinction wouldn't have had much to do with ownership at that point. Yet, note that enforcing a separation between university and city has less to do with actual ownership of the buildings than with ideas about how those buildings are perceived and used. Hypothetically, Harvard could have built the square itself and still have chosen to draw a distinction between campus and commercial structures.
All of this gets more complicated when we start to consider the Houses south of the square and how they interact with the rest of the city, which happens to be more complementary than Harvard's Mass. Ave. buildings. I wanted to keep the focus on Mass. Ave. because it helped illustrate what I think they were trying to achieve with the massing of Stern's building at the law school.
The Law School (where I work) would LOVE to tear those ugly and not-very-functional buildings down but the city finds them historic (or potentially historic someday).
The Gropius dorms ARE historic - they are so named because they were designed by Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus) himself while he was at Harvard GSD. These are easily among the most architecturally significant buildings at Harvard, along with Corbusier's Carpenter Hall. That said, I agree they don't really belong with the rest of the HLS complex. They'd be better off with more space to reinforce their low-slung atmosphere - in Allston, maybe? It'd be a fantasy to move them down there, but I think they'd be better complemented by (or complement) the new grad complex on Western Ave. (the one with the shifty window tower that stands adjacent to Soldiers Field Rd.)
). An eight-story slab such as you'd find on the Boulevard St. Michel is hardly phallic.