Eyes on ‘America,’ with hope of drawing more
A wall is just a wall. Unless it is a work of art hidden in plain sight. That was the message of a lecture Tuesday at the Graduate School of Design — the first in “Then and Now,” a series on the legacy of the iconic architect Walter Gropius, courtesy of the Professor William Breger Fund. Gropius taught at Harvard from 1937 to 1952 and was credited with creating an American fervor for modern design. Introducing the lecture, Dean Mohsen Mostafavi said, “We want to use the series to make that history present.” The messenger was Christopher E.G. Benfey, Ph.D. ’83, a professor at Mount Holyoke and a polymathic historian, memoirist, and literary critic. His focus: a floor-to-ceiling mosaic of yellow masonry brick called “America” (1950). In its Harkness Commons setting, the wall is little noticed despite its intricacy (inspired by the pre-Columbian Mitla ruins in Mexico) and its size (8 feet wide...