MIT Building 20
MIT Building 20, formally known as the Radiation Laboratory Building, stands as among the most celebrated and unconventional structures in the history of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, by extension, American scientific research. Located on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this now-demolished temporary wood-frame building housed an extraordinary concentration of scientific talent and produced a disproportionate number of landmark discoveries over more than five decades. Often called the "Magic Incubator" by those who worked within its deliberately utilitarian walls, Building 20 became a symbol of creative freedom born from institutional neglect—a place where scientists, engineers, and thinkers could nail things to the walls, cut holes in ceilings, and reorganize entire floors without asking anyone's permission.
History
Building 20 was constructed in 1943 as a hastily erected wartime facility intended to house the MIT Radiation Laboratory, a top-secret research organization committed to the development of radar technology during World War II. The structure was never designed to last more than a few years. Built quickly and cheaply from wood and plywood, it was expected to be torn down shortly after the war's conclusion. Instead, it remained standing—and occupied—for more than five decades, finally being demolished in 1998 to make way for the Ray and Maria Stata Center, designed by architect Frank Gehry.
During the war, the Radiation Laboratory employed thousands of physicists, engineers, and technicians working under intense pressure and secrecy. The laboratory is credited with developing radar systems that played a crucial role in Allied military operations, and many historians argue that the technological advances achieved within Building 20 had a decisive impact on the outcome of the war. When the conflict ended and the Radiation Laboratory was disbanded, the building's temporary status was never resolved administratively, and it was quietly subdivided and repurposed to accommodate a wide variety of MIT departments and research groups who needed space.
The building's postwar decades were characterized by an almost accidental genius. Because it was considered temporary, it was never subject to the same regulations, maintenance standards, or bureaucratic oversight as permanent campus structures. Tenants were free to modify their spaces in radical ways—cutting through floors, installing custom equipment, or rerouting plumbing and electrical systems—without going through the lengthy approval processes that governed work in other MIT buildings. This freedom from institutional constraint became the defining feature of the building's culture and is frequently cited as a key reason why so much innovative work occurred there.[1]
The demolition of Building 20 in 1998 was met with a mixture of nostalgia and relief. Many former occupants and MIT historians mourned the loss of a structure that had become inseparable from the institution's identity as a place of radical inquiry and hands-on experimentation. Others acknowledged that the building had long outlived its useful life and that the Stata Center, despite its controversial aesthetics, would provide modern facilities for computer science and linguistics research. A bronze plaque and various archival initiatives now serve to preserve the memory of Building 20's contributions to science, technology, and culture.
Culture
The culture that developed inside Building 20 was shaped almost entirely by its physical characteristics and its anomalous administrative status. Unlike the polished laboratories and carefully managed research environments that characterized other elite institutions, Building 20 offered its occupants something far rarer: genuine autonomy over their physical workspace. Researchers could and did modify the building's structure in ways that served their specific research needs, and this capacity for physical self-determination seemed to encourage intellectual self-determination as well. The building became known as a place where unconventional ideas received a fair hearing, where junior researchers could approach senior faculty with unusual proposals, and where the boundaries between disciplines were regularly crossed.
among the most frequently told stories about Building 20's culture involves the way its inhabitants from different fields would encounter one another in the building's narrow corridors, shared kitchens, and common areas. Unlike modern research buildings designed with specific departments in mind, Building 20's eclectic mix of tenants meant that a linguist might share a hallway with a particle physicist, or an electrical engineer might find herself in conversation with a psychologist. These unplanned, serendipitous interactions were credited by many former occupants as the source of research questions and collaborations that would never have arisen in a more orderly environment. The building's very chaos was, paradoxically, the engine of its productivity.[2]
The hacker culture that became associated with MIT more broadly also found an early home in Building 20. Student groups and informal research collectives used the building's accessible spaces and permissive culture as a testing ground for projects that would not have been welcome in more formally managed environments. The Tech Model Railroad Club, one of the earliest groups associated with what would become computer hacker culture, occupied a room in Building 20 during the 1950s and 1960s. The club's members developed practices and values—including a commitment to understanding systems thoroughly, modifying them creatively, and sharing knowledge freely—that became foundational to the broader hacker ethos and, eventually, to the open-source software movement.
Notable Residents
Building 20 was home to a remarkable array of researchers, scholars, and practitioners over the course of its existence. Perhaps most famously, the building housed Noam Chomsky's early work in linguistics, including the development of transformational generative grammar, a theoretical framework that revolutionized the study of language and influenced fields ranging from cognitive science to philosophy of mind to computer science. Chomsky's presence in Building 20 helped establish MIT's linguistics program as among the most influential in the world.
The building also housed the Research Laboratory of Electronics, which became one of MIT's most productive interdisciplinary research centers and was responsible for foundational work in information theory, communications technology, and signal processing. Researchers associated with this laboratory produced work that laid the groundwork for modern telecommunications, digital computing, and the internet. Other notable occupants over the years included researchers working on foundational problems in physics, electrical engineering, psychology, and biology. The building's informal environment attracted scholars who preferred flexibility and experimentation over the prestige of more polished facilities, and this self-selection process contributed to the distinctive intellectual character of Building 20's community.[3]
Beyond individual researchers, Building 20 was home to a number of student organizations, informal groups, and research collectives that made significant contributions to MIT's culture and to American intellectual life more broadly. The building served as an incubator for ideas that required space, tolerance for noise and mess, and freedom from administrative scrutiny—qualities that were in short supply elsewhere on the MIT campus and at most other research universities.
Geography
Building 20 occupied a prominent position on the MIT campus in Cambridge, situated along Vassar Street near the heart of the institution's main academic buildings. The structure was a three-story wood-frame building covering a substantial footprint, with multiple wings and annexes that had been added over the years to accommodate expanding research activities. Its location near other major MIT facilities made it easily accessible to faculty, students, and staff from across the institution, which contributed to the interdisciplinary mixing that characterized its culture.
The site where Building 20 once stood now hosts the Ray and Maria Stata Center, completed in 2004. The Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry, is a visually distinctive complex that houses MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy—departments that trace their intellectual lineage, in significant part, to work done in Building 20. The Stata Center's unusual, deconstructivist architecture has made it among the most photographed buildings in Boston and Cambridge, though it has also attracted criticism for practical problems including leaks and drainage issues that were the subject of litigation.[4]
The broader neighborhood surrounding the former site of Building 20—often referred to as Kendall Square or the MIT campus area—has undergone dramatic transformation since the building's demolition. The area has become among the most concentrated biotechnology and technology research districts in the world, with major pharmaceutical companies, technology firms, and research hospitals clustered within walking distance of the MIT campus. This transformation, while far exceeding anything that could have been predicted during Building 20's heyday, is in many ways a continuation of the spirit of applied scientific research and entrepreneurial experimentation that characterized life inside the old wood-frame building.
Attractions
For visitors to the MIT campus, the legacy of Building 20 is accessible through several institutional resources. The MIT Museum, located in Cambridge, maintains exhibits and archival materials related to the history of the Radiation Laboratory, the postwar development of MIT's research programs, and the distinctive culture that flourished in Building 20. The museum offers a broader context for understanding how MIT's physical environment shaped its intellectual identity during the twentieth century.
The Ray and Maria Stata Center, which now occupies the Building 20 site, is itself a notable attraction for visitors interested in contemporary architecture and the history of computing and linguistics research. Public tours of the MIT campus regularly include stops at the Stata Center, and interpretive materials at the site often reference the history of Building 20. The MIT campus as a whole is open to the public and offers self-guided walking tours that highlight significant sites in the history of American science and technology. For those interested in the intersection of place, culture, and scientific creativity, the story of Building 20 and its successor structure offers among the most compelling narratives in the history of American research universities.[5]