The Architecture of the MMS Building

The Creative Process, the Aesthetic and the Functional Results
“It is not only a place of bricks and mortar. Indeed, this place will have no meaning except by the measure of what we do here. When we began development of the project, we stood surrounded by trees, rocks and grass. Foremost in our minds were the future generations of physicians who will gather here to carry on the legacy of our profession. Many things will change, but not our mission: the care of those who place their lives in our hands. It is our hope that this place will give them a foundation from to carry out that mission.”

Charles A. Welch, MD
MA MEDICAL SOCIETY BUILDING COMMITTEE
October 13, 1999, Building Dedication

“Yours is a profession which began with the beginning of civilization and will last as long as civilization lasts. The design of your new home must arch over that great span of time, which not only includes the time of the Act of the Charter of 1781, but also encompasses all of your people who are entering the work force today as well as tomorrow, looking for relevancy in this age of information and globalization and beyond.”

Robert Y. C. Hsiung, FAIA
Principal Architect
JUNG/BRANNEN ASSOCIATES, Inc.
October 31, 1997

This narrative is intended to explain the basis for the selection of the design elements and for the architectural decisions that resulted in the new building headquarters for the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is based on the presentation made by Mr. Robert Hsiung to the building committee of the Society that became the basis from which the committee chose Mr. Hsiung from a field of five other competing architects to design the building, recollections of individual conservations between Mr. Hsiung and several members of the building committee, and an interview that I conducted with Mr. Hsiung nearly two years after the completion and occupancy of the building.

The architect chose two design themes for the building: (1) nature, (2) medical history and tradition. He had the usual constraints placed upon him that all architects have placed on them by their clients: (1) a building in which form (anatomy) must relate to function (physiology); (2) limitations of the terrain that the building is to occupy; and (3) budgetary restrictions.

Mr. Hsuing states that some of the design elements were conscious, and some were not conscious. An example of a conscious element is the architectural design of a building that it “timeless”, as opposed to one that is frozen in time such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Another example of conscious design is the creation of a meeting place in three dimensions (3 stories) in the center of the building. Everyone comes and goes into the atrium several times in the course of a work day causing chance encounters to occur that lead to a sense of community. The agora of classical Greek antiquity and more recently the New England village town greens were designed for this purpose.

Subconscious design elements find themselves more evident in the area of medical history. In the course of a conservation between Mr. Hsiung and a member of the building committee on the subject of medical history, the architect’s lead question was: in your opinion, when did modern medicine begin? The member opined that it began with Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine (460-c.377 B.C.E.), for several reasons the principle one being that Hippocrates taught that disease is an undesirable natural occurrence caused by natural agents. He taught that disease should be carefully studied and possible remedies for them should be sought for in nature. The thinking in all the theocracies up to his time had been that diseases are punishment from God(s) and that remedies for disease are largely-if not exclusively-derived from prayer and sacrifice. The Hippocratic tectonic shift in thinking about a natural-not a supernatural-cause for disease had to occur before scientific inquiry could be launched and developed. Hippocrates was followed by other famous Greek physicians in the service of the Romans: Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), Dioscorides (A.D. 40-90) and Galen (A.D. 131-201). Galen’s concept of the balance of four humors in the human body was based on Aristotle’s (384-322 B.C.E) idea of the four basic elements of the earth. The four humors in balance (health) vs. the four humors out of balance (disease) theory held sway over medical thinking for a millennium until the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy at the end of the Middle Ages. The search for therapeutic sources in plants for the cure of disease and the alleviation of symptoms that began in prehistoric time was advanced and recorded by Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Pliny the Elder and others based on their personal observations and clinical experiences. That process to search for cures in plants continued through all times in all civilizations without interruption and continues to this day worldwide. That process will never cease. This important part of medical history is a major theme in all of the gardens that surround the building.

A question put to the architect was: are the Greek elements in the architecture such as the dentils of the exterior brick façade and the special features of the conference center there to represent the substantial contributions of Greek medicine to modern medicine? His answer: “Not consciously”. The conference center auditorium has certain features that resemble the small open-air theatre of Classical Greece, the odeon, which was designed intentionally for small audiences and used largely as a site for recitals and declamations. Mr. Hsuing explains that there was no conscious attempt to model the auditorium on the odeon. He explains that the purpose for the curved arrangement of the seats in the auditorium is to give each member of the audience a greater sense of participation with others as well as with the presenters. This is in contrast to a feeling that a member of the audience gets of being one of many observing a performance but not relating to another member of the audience as is apt to be the case when the seats are arranged in straight rows as found in most theatres. The ribbon windows of the auditorium were not consciously designed to create the feeling of an open-air theatre. The floodlight recessed above a cherry wood lattice in the auditorium ceiling gives off a warm glow resembling the glow of early morning sun light. This beautiful lighting feature was not consciously designed to simulate sunlight and the feeling of an open-air theatre. The multiple perfect circles in the ceiling design are not consciously presented to remind anyone of the love of the Greeks for perfect circles. The curved arrangement of the solid preformed pillars of concrete with merely an abacus and no stylobate suggest an understated Roman column. They form the space for the cafeteria and they were not consciously designed and placed in an arcuate colonnade to be symbolic of the Roman contributions to medicine.

The design features relating to the nature theme in the building are conscious and very evident. They deserve to be enumerated but require little explanation. The building is consciously designed to relate to the sky, to the ground, and to the natural changes in the position of the sun that occurs during the working day and throughout the seasons. The seasonal changes in trees, plants etc are easily observed in every direction. The containers on the roof are housed in white enclosures to hide them from view. There are no protrusions on the roof to mar the harmony between the top of the building and the sky. Natural elements include glacial boulders next to the foundation and in the atrium! Trees, shrubs, and plants in the garden designs around the entire perimeter of the building are allowed to grow in their natural shapes. Medicinal plant and medicinal trees are heavily represented in the garden designs. To address the theme of medical history and tradition, a special medicinal plant garden features a variety of medicinal herbs grown in herb gardens of classical antiquity as well as grown in the HORTUS MEDICUS (the medicinal garden) of every European university of the Middle Ages that had a medical school. Away from the building, old tree stands, glacial formations and old stonewalls are preserved to the allowed maximum. They provide a reference to the natural environment and blend well with the gardens and the foundation plantings.

Others elements of the building design that relate to the nature theme are: (1) an atrium that faces east allowing the panoramic viewing of large natural vistas in the foreground and mid-ground with the Boston skyline in the far background. (This phenomenal opportunity to commune with the natural environment is not possible when the atrium is in the center of the building such as a courtyard that is surrounded by the building on all sides); (2) a skylight that is directed exactly north and south to allow observation of the natural change in the position of the sun throughout the course of the day and the gradual change of the sun’s position in all four seasons; (3) ribbon windows throughout the entire third floor and the conference center auditorium to allow panoramic view in every direction; (4) two artificial ponds designed to collect and treat surface water physically and biologically, but not chemically, before the water is led in potable quality to gravel beds where it slowly enters the water table. These aesthetically pleasing features protect the immediate environment and the Cambridge Reservoir. Wild flower gardens and indigenous appearing vegetation surrounding the ponds provide a very natural appearing and aesthetically pleasing interface with the other buildings and their gardens on the campus and with the surrounding neighborhoods.

To carry through with the theme of tradition, the building materials are those of classical antiquity and are used in a traditional manner. The building materials are red brick, quarried granite from Deer Island, Maine, glass, concrete and wood. Cherry wood is used throughout the building in paneling, office doors, window-trim and in furniture. The cherry wood paneling is unadorned forcing attention on the natural beauty of the wood itself. Large pieces of ledge blasted on the site were used with fieldstones to create beautiful retaining dry wall around gardens, along roadways and at the perimeter of the campus in several locations adding another natural feature to the site.

The architectural building and garden designs resulted in one of the most beautiful buildings in Waltham. The building serves very well the meeting, educational, administrative and publication needs of the Society. In addition, it also provides a very pleasant, safe, comfortable and aesthetically pleasing environment to work for the Massachusetts Medical Society Community that consists not only of members, tenants and visitors, but approximately four hundred employees who come to work in this building to assist the members in the Society’s mission to serve the public as well as the many needs of the Society’s members.

George P. Santos, MD
Secretary-Treasurer (1997-2002)