The center was built in the 1960s at the recommendation of a committee appointed by former President Nathan Pusey to investigate the place of the visual arts in Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum. Their 1956 report described the tensions, complications, and opportunities of a visual arts education at a large research university and suggested building a center to consolidate artistic entities under one roof.

Le Corbusier was a pioneer of modernist architecture and was instrumental in the creation of the International Style. The building was a controversial addition to an otherwise traditional campus when completed circa 1963, but Le Corbusier believed that a building devoted to the visual arts should be designed with freedom and creativity. The five-level building, supported by concrete columns, features an ascending ramp at its center, with an open design that encourages public circulation and allows viewers to watch art being made.

Matt Saunders, professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, was an undergraduate student in the 1990s in what at the time was called the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. He has fond memories of attending artist lectures in the center’s basement, gathering with other students for smoke breaks on the ramp, and crashing on couches in the studio areas after staying too late working on a project.

“For me as a student showing up from public school in Baltimore with a lot of curiosity about art but not a lot of experience, it was just this magical space that felt so different from everything on campus,” Saunders said. “The building itself is a machine for generating relationships and thinking about space and sculpture and lighting.”