Blair Kamin opens up the "Gates of Harvard Yard"

2016-05-03T18:23:00-04:00

In an age that celebrates transparency and openness, it's fashionable to disparage gates. They have become symbols of elitism and exclusion, or just plain ugly instruments of control. Cue the gated subdivision. But the 25 gates that rim the perimeter of Harvard Yard tell a different story: Gates are expressions of beginning, of belonging, of entry into something larger than oneself.

Blair Kamin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, has a new book out today, The Gates of Harvard Yard. Here, Kamin presents why the illustrious university's gate designs are worth investigating in an exclusive intro for Archinect, followed by an excerpted piece from the book.

But the 25 gates that rim the perimeter of Harvard Yard tell a different story: Gates are expressions of beginning, of belonging, of entry into something larger than oneself. In delineating space, they mark crucial transitions—between ignorance and wisdom, captivity and freedom, life and death. Not for nothing does this oft-quoted inscription appear on one of the gates that lead into the Yard: “Enter to Grow in Wisdom.”

For the new book “Gates of Harvard Yard,” published b...

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Blair Kamin opens up the "Gates of Harvard Yard"