A new magical incubator?

Abstract

PurposeBuilding 20 of MIT was erected hurriedly during World War II to house the Radiation Laboratory which was the main US centre for research on radar. Later it housed the Research Laboratory of Electronics of MIT and was the site of a vast amount of innovative research, including much that laid foundations for cybernetics. The unpretentious building was demolished in recent years, and a bizarre and entirely different structure has replaced it. The new design is meant to encourage innovation by a quite different route. The purpose here is to show the importance in the history of cybernetics of what went on in Building 20, which can hardly be overstated, and to argue that for the new building it has to be a “hard act to follow”.Design/methodology/approachPrompted by an item in the Boston Globe, the old and new buildings are contrasted, with the part played by the old building illustrated by reminiscences.FindingsThe reference to the old building as a “magical incubator” is fully warranted.Practical implicationsAn instructive contrast is offered between a highly successful but largely fortuitous research environment, and one that is planned in detail and has yet to prove its worth. One valuable planned feature of the old environment, namely a comprehensive “document room”, is described.Originality/valueThe account should be valuable as a historical record.