Tucked away on the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Boston is a potentially shocking scene to the unsuspecting tourist. It is intriguing to some and disturbing to others. A former university president called it a disaster, but many would call the creation of award-winning architect, Frank Gehry, a delight.
The 720,000 square foot Ray and Maria Stata center is located at 32 Vassar Street and is used primarily by the electrical engineering and computer science departments of the prestigious tech school. The building was obviously designed to turn heads and to make a statement. According to Wikipedia, “Architecture critic Robert Campbell praised Gehry for ‘break[ing] up the monotony of a street of concrete buildings’ and being ‘a building like no other building.’” When the building opened in 2004 Campbell wrote:
“The Stata is always going to look unfinished. It also looks as if it’s about to collapse. Columns tilt at scary angles. Walls teeter, swerve, and collide in random curves and angles. Materials change wherever you look: brick, mirror-surface steel, brushed aluminum, brightly colored paint, corrugated metal. Everything looks improvised, as if thrown up at the last moment. That’s the point. The Stata’s appearance is a metaphor for the freedom, daring, and creativity of the research that’s supposed to occur inside it.”
Whether the Stata center impresses or unsettles those who drive by, it certainly reminds everyone that buildings don’t have to all look the same in order to work. It also underscores how variety, quirkiness and non-traditional ideas can converge on a blueprint and emerge as a structure that cannot be ignored. Projects like this one highlight one of mankind’s greatest attributes – creativity. God created everything, and then made man in His image. As a result, we have been given the wonderful gift of creativity. While creativity has produced many terrible things, those who allow God to influence their creativity have the potential to impact the world and thereby help everyone enjoy a higher quality of life. Everyone benefits, and the person God uses experiences purpose and meaning not found in an ordinary existence.
But believers should beware, because God-inspired people may not always fit the status quo. The idea of a “God-inspired life” is that someone allows God to be the architect, help them make their peace with the destiny He offers them, and then enjoy the creative journey called life, under his direction. Not everyone understands or approves of the projects that come out of such a union, and Jesus is exhibit “A”. Nevertheless, God invites you and I into the drawing room and shares His plans and dreams, so we can have the privilege of participating in the fulfillment of those plans. Romans 4:17 (AMP) describes God as one: “Who gives life to the dead and speaks of the nonexistent things that [He has foretold and promised] as if they [already] existed.” God is the ultimate architect and we have yet to see all He has planned, but I want to be a part of it, and I am confident it will be unique, intriguing.