WEBVTT

00:00:00.499 --> 00:00:01.900
PROFESSOR: Think.

00:00:01.900 --> 00:00:04.720
How does one understand
the passage of time?

00:00:04.720 --> 00:00:07.490
How do we understand the
evolution of humanity's most

00:00:07.490 --> 00:00:10.160
dynamic invention, the city?

00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:12.120
Look closely and carefully.

00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:15.310
Try to see how the layers
of history have accumulated.

00:00:15.310 --> 00:00:17.290
Cities are the
products of the actions

00:00:17.290 --> 00:00:20.180
of millions of people
and countless decisions,

00:00:20.180 --> 00:00:22.700
public and private.

00:00:22.700 --> 00:00:26.870
How do all the pieces, styles,
and times fit together?

00:00:26.870 --> 00:00:28.320
How does one
understand processes

00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:34.040
as trends, at once part of
the past and of the future?

00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:36.600
And how will the new
fit into the fabric

00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:39.390
when it loses that newness?

00:00:39.390 --> 00:00:43.300
In a place as old as Cambridge,
what's a dormitory today

00:00:43.300 --> 00:00:47.260
might easily have played host to
critical junctures in history.

00:00:47.260 --> 00:00:49.690
Without understanding
our surroundings,

00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:52.570
we can only inhabit the present.

00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:56.107
Signs may reveal that
which is all but forgotten

00:00:56.107 --> 00:00:56.690
and invisible.

00:00:59.230 --> 00:01:02.310
That which may seem
eternal like a river

00:01:02.310 --> 00:01:05.390
may be subject to great change.

00:01:05.390 --> 00:01:07.830
On our own campus, the
Great Dome's date stone

00:01:07.830 --> 00:01:11.070
recalls its own construction,
while the columns that support

00:01:11.070 --> 00:01:14.420
it allude to things far older.

00:01:14.420 --> 00:01:17.030
Preserving the past
is often impossible.

00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:20.920
All around MIT and the region
as a whole, construction sites

00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:24.230
testify to the constant
destruction and remaking

00:01:24.230 --> 00:01:26.150
of the city.

00:01:26.150 --> 00:01:28.850
Even when structures
stand the test of time,

00:01:28.850 --> 00:01:31.190
the ways of life
that they represent

00:01:31.190 --> 00:01:34.375
and that they once enabled
are often irrevocably lost.

00:01:37.770 --> 00:01:42.640
In Fort Point, fading signs for
leather and metal manufacturing

00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:47.200
advertise services that
have long since departed.

00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:50.650
Across the channel in the
city's financial district,

00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:53.760
economic trends such as
the need for office space

00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.010
may be too great to save
more than the facade

00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.070
of an old warehouse.

00:01:58.070 --> 00:02:01.620
At street level, the
walking city is preserved,

00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:05.820
but tall buildings now rise
above the old mansard roofs.

00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:09.014
Why do office towers sprout
in the center of the hub?

00:02:09.014 --> 00:02:13.170
Will spaces of work
always dominate downtowns?

00:02:13.170 --> 00:02:16.430
What processes might
disrupt the practice?

00:02:16.430 --> 00:02:18.620
And how will the city adapt?

00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:20.760
Adaptation is after
all everywhere.

00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:23.210
This street in Beacon
Hill, for example,

00:02:23.210 --> 00:02:25.900
was laid out more than a
century before the invention

00:02:25.900 --> 00:02:27.470
of the car.

00:02:27.470 --> 00:02:30.910
What could have preceded the
proliferation of parking here

00:02:30.910 --> 00:02:33.310
along the waterfront?

00:02:33.310 --> 00:02:36.120
In the Back Bay,
signs and symbols

00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.630
share space on a
single structure,

00:02:38.630 --> 00:02:41.920
institutions giving way to
the pervasive social process

00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:43.820
of shopping.

00:02:43.820 --> 00:02:47.210
How can you read the
past and the present

00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:50.060
here on Newbury Street?

00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:53.600
Signs of the past,
signs of the future,

00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:57.000
are visible in all
parts of the city.

00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.600
With old maps in
hand and a keen eye,

00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:03.440
one can sense the trends that
propel the city's development

00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:07.710
and reason out whether they'll
continue to stretch and flex

00:03:07.710 --> 00:03:12.410
or with the right force
applied snap completely.

00:03:12.410 --> 00:03:15.400
You can read the traces
of the past, a history

00:03:15.400 --> 00:03:18.910
of the city that is visible,
and can be communicated,

00:03:18.910 --> 00:03:22.810
photographed, and assembled
into a meaningful form.

00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.300
As you walk the
streets and alleys,

00:03:25.300 --> 00:03:28.780
it should become clear
history is not only

00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:30.050
to be found in books.

00:03:30.050 --> 00:03:32.800
[MUSIC PLAYING]