HARVARD ALUMNI

1. John Adams (1735–1826)

The nation’s second president, although nervous upon entering the illustrious college as a freshman, eventually became enthralled by his studies.

2. Henry James (1843–1916)

The master of the psychological novel sourced plenty of material at Harvard for his scathing 1886 work The Bostonians.

3. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963)

Founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Du Bois studied philosophy here, and said of his experience, “I was in Harvard, but not of it.”

4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945)

Apparently more of a social butterfly than a dedicated academic, F.D.R. played pranks, led the freshman football squad, edited the Harvard Crimson, and earned a C average at Harvard before going on to become the 32nd President of the US.

5. T. S. Eliot (1885–1965)

The modernist poet of The Waste Land fame contributed much of his early work to the Advocate. He went on to edit many of those submissions for later publication.

6. John F. Kennedy (1917–63)

A barely average student, but a good athlete, John F. Kennedy ran for President of the Freshman Class in 1936, and lost badly. He did rather better in 1960 when he became the 35th President of the United States.

7. Leonard Bernstein (1918–90)

The country’s greatest composer and conductor was firmly grounded in the arts at Harvard. He edited the Advocate – the college’s estimable literary and performing arts journal.

TopTen

Leonard Bernstein

8. Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007)

This class of 1973 alumna later became the first woman to lead a modern Muslim state when she was elected prime minister of Pakistan in 1988. She was assassinated in 2007.

9. Bill Gates (1955– )

William Henry Gates III dropped out of Harvard in his third year to found Microsoft. He was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 for his humanitarian and philanthropic work. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate in 2007 by Harvard.

TopTen

Bill Gates

10. Barack Obama (1961– )

The 44th President of the United States attended Harvard Law School from 1988–91. His election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained extensive media attention.

HARVARD’S “ARCHITECTURAL ZOO”

Prominent modernist architect James Stirling described Harvard as an “architectural zoo” – and it’s a well-deserved moniker. Stirling was responsible for the university’s modernist 1985 Sackler Museum building that now houses offices. Charles Bulfinch, whose claim to fame is the Massachusetts State House, contributed the 1814 University Hall, featuring an ingenious granite staircase that “floats” – supported solely by virtue of its interlocking steps. In contrast, Walter Gropius, whose strongly linear residential buildings pepper college campuses throughout the northeast US, designed the Harvard Graduate Center in 1950. He strove to make his industry-informed projects seem welcoming for their inhabitants, but by most Harvard grad students’ accounts, it doesn’t exactly scream “home sweet home.” Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is a wondrous collection of forms and materials. The center boasts entire walls made of glass and deeply grooved concrete. Perhaps surprisingly, it is Le Corbusier’s only design in North America.

TopTen

Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, designed by Le Corbusier

TOP 10 HARVARD’S BUILDINGS

1. Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy St (Ware and Van Brunt, 1878)

2. Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St (Hugh Stebbins, 1959)

3. Massachusetts Hall, Harvard Yard (University Overseers, 1720)

4. Sackler Museum building, 485 Broadway (James Stirling, 1985)

5. Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street (Renzo Piano and Payette, 2014)

6. University Hall, Harvard Yard (Charles Bulfinch, 1814)

7. Sever and Austin halls, Harvard Yard and North Yard (H. H. Richardson, 1880 and 1883)

TopTen

Sever Hall and Austin Hall were designed by architect and 1859 Harvard alumnus H. H. Richardson. Both halls echo the distinctive Romanesque style found on his Copley Square masterpiece – Trinity Church.

8. Harvard Graduate Center, North Yard (Walter Gropius, 1950)

9. Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy St (Le Corbusier, 1963)

10. Undergraduate Science Center, Oxford St (Josep Lluís Sert, 1971)

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