Stata Center

The Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center was going to be MIT's crown jewel, final proof that it was every bit the world-class institution as its snooty neighbor Harvard. Unfortunately, unlike Gehry's justifiably legendary earlier works like the Bilbao Guggenheim and Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall, the building feels like a lazy, thrown-together hodgepodge, its cartoonishly crazy angles seemingly inspired more by Dr. Seuss than Rem Koolhaas. Not only does it lack the graceful beauty and conceptual elegance of Gehry's best buildings, the Stata Center is, by most accounts, a nightmare to work in. Its jutting angles and lavish curves create wasted space in offices and classrooms, and employees regularly complain about the near-total lack of such basic amenities as soundproofing. (Some have reportedly quit their jobs as a result.) Most damagingly, a multitude of structural problems have plagued the building since its opening in 2004, causing both accusations and lawsuits to fly between the university, the architect, and the construction firm that actually did the work. Whether bad design or poor execution is at fault, the Stata Center should serve as a warning to future universities who think celebrity architects are their ticket to the big time.