Architecture, at its best, embodies a society's consciousness about itself. More perhaps than the product of any other discipline - any of the arts, science, or technology-the artifacts which result from the act of building bespeak the character and aspirations of their makers. Architecture is our most timeless and quotidian means of expressing ourselves – of transf...

Preservation. In 1959, a decade after Alvar Aalto’s Baker House opened on the MIT campus, Steen Eiler Rasmussen wrote enthusiastically of it in his landmark book, Experiencing Architecture. ”The entire design is based on the functions of the building… For these young people Aalto has created a building which entirely avoids the stereotyped rooms and anthill atmosphere of old-fashioned…