Exhibition and Tours at the List Visual Art Center at MIT
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CLUI bus tour at SETI Antenna on Massachusetts
"C4I ET" tour.
CLUI photo |
During this Summer, the CLUI exhibited
a program at the List Center for Visual Arts at MIT. This exhibit
focussed on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, emphasizing the
role of technology in the landscape, a theme appropriate to
the venue - at a technological institution - as well as appropriate
to the region, as many of the technologies that have transformed
the world have their origins in Massachusetts.
Installed in May and open through the Summer,
the completed exhibit consisted of a selection of sites, represented
by photographs and text, and presented in alphabetical order.
A bus tour was also conducted as part of the exhibit.
From the beginning of the industrial revolution,
the economic history of Massachusetts has been based on advances
in technology. In the 19th century it was textiles, armaments,
and machine tool industries, centered around government-financed
water works. In the early 20th century, when the textile industry
went south to cheaper labor, high technology was beginning to
develop in the State, due in no small part to the increasing
prominence of MIT.
Though the CLUI exhibit at MIT this Summer looked
at industries and technology sites throughout the state, from
the GE plastics plant at Pittsfield to the Cape Cod Canal, a
major factor in the state's technological landscape is the high
tech sector, which is rarely described from a land use perspective.
It is well known that the Route 128 Corridor -
the Massachusetts Miracle - emerged as the modern economic backbone
of the state, and it is in this region that links between MIT,
government, and high-tech businesses are striking. Though this
relationship is nothing new (early funders of MIT included the
leading technology companies of the day; GE, DuPont, Eastman
Kodak, and Westinghouse), the contemporary situation is less
appreciated, and was therefore one of the focuses of the CLUI
exhibit.
It started with one of the giant technological
leaps forward of World War Two: the development of radar and
related forms of electromagnetic communication, and MIT was
the center of this research, conducted in secret in buildings
all over campus. The "Radiation Lab," as it was cryptically
called, was the second largest wartime research project after
the Manhattan Project, and was funded entirely by the government,
primarily through the political connections and designs of Vannevar
Bush.
"No American has had greater influence in the
growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush," said MIT
President Jerome Weisner. Bush held such positions as head of
the Carnegie Institution, Chairman of NACA (which became NASA),
and Chairman of the MIT Corporation. He convinced President
Roosevelt to establish the Office of Scientific Research and
Development (OSRD), which oversaw all federal funding for wartime
R&D. With Bush as the first director of the OSRD, a third of
its allocations went to MIT in the 1940's and 50's, and much
of this was for radar.
After the war, the Rad Lab was officially closed,
but its projects were carried on at a new location and under
a new name: Lincoln Lab. Built on the edge of Hanscom Air Force
Base, at the heart of what would become the Route 128 corridor,
the lab continued to be funded by the government and run by
MIT (as it is to this day). Its early work in developing defense
warning radar systems for the US led to the creation of revolutionary
communications and computer technologies including the first
"supercomputer" (the Whirlwind computer); the first system to
send video signals by satellite; and a system of remote telemetry
and computer sites connected via telephone lines called the
SAGE system, which formed the skeleton for the ARPANET, which
became today's internet.
These technologies flooded the state with new
companies started by enterprising Lincoln Lab employees, among
them the founders of Digital Computer Corporation, which by
1977 had 41% of the world's minicomputer sales. Over 65 influential
companies have been spun directly out of Lincoln Lab, including
the MITRE corporation, which employs nearly 3,000 people at
its headquarters in nearby Bedford, building software and engineering
systems primarily for intelligence and military customers (including
the NSA).
In addition to Lincoln Lab and a myriad of related
computer and electronics companies, the defense/university/corporate
hub of Route 128 at Hanscom Air Force Base is home of the Electronic
Systems Center, which is the Air Force's primary research and
development center for surveillance and intelligence electronics,
called "C4I" (command, control, communication, computer, and
intelligence) systems. With an annual budget of over $3 billion,
the Electronic Systems Center develops defense warning systems
including the famous Cheyenne Mountain underground military
control center in Colorado.
Also on the edge of Hanscom is a sprawling Raytheon
Systems plant, developing missile and guidance systems. As the
largest company in the state, Raytheon has several plants in
the area, as well as its headquarters in Lincoln, one exit down
Route 128 from Hanscom. Raytheon's story lies at the heart of
Massachusetts' high-tech landscape. Founded in the 1920's as
an appliance company, radar-related defense contracts in World
War Two increased its sales over 5000%, making it suddenly as
big as General Electric at the time. The company was co-founded
by none other than Vannevar Bush, who later resigned from the
Board due to conflict of interest concerns. And so it goes.
These physical locations and many others were
represented and discussed in the CLUI exhibit. A bus tour was
also conducted by the CLUI as part of the exhibit, following
the theme of land use associated with electromagnetic research
and development. On the five-hour tour through suburban and
exurban Massachusetts, the group was led through such sites
as the Millstone Hill Radar Site, with its numerous unusual
antenna; Lincoln Lab and Hanscom Air Force Base, where the bus
was led around by military escort; and a stop at Oak Ridge Observatory,
with its dedicated radio dish that searches the sky for signs
of extraterrestrial intelligence. The tour was entitled "C4I
ET.".
