Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Mosaic of American Culture | Page 11

Hall in Harvard Yard, he led the way in adaptive reuse in
architecture.
Thompson founded Design Research, known as D|R, in
1953. Within a decade, D|R had become the most impor-
tant source of modern interior design products in America.
D|R introduced this country to the work of Marimekko,
the Finnish firm known for bold, colorful fabric design. Ben
taught at Harvard and became Department Chairman of the
Graduate School of Design when Walter Gropius retired.
Founding Benjamin Thompson & Associates (BTA) in
1966, he championed an architecture of “joy and sensibility”
in an urban environment he called “The City of Man,” a
place that has a human scale, is sensitive to nature, and
encourages social activity. In 1986, BTA won the AIA
Firm of the Year Award. In 1992, he received the AIA Gold
Medal, the profession’s highest award, and he was Knighted
by the President of Finland.
Thompson’s wife, Jane, was a vital partner, personal and
professional, in all of these accomplishments, and an in-
novative designer
as well. The
Thompsons were
the “parents”
of one of the
country’s first
and most suc-
cessful adaptive
reuse projects,
the restoration of
Boston’s Faneuil
Hall Market-
place, opened
in 1976. Faneuil
Jane and Ben Thompson in 1986
Hall Market-
place is widely credited with saving downtown Boston
and became the model for regenerating urban centers. He
brought this model to many other successful revitalization
projects such as Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, South Street
Seaport, and Miami Bayside.
This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the D|R
Headquarters building at 48 Brattle Street, Cambridge,
Mass. It pioneered a unique design of frameless glass panels,
allowing people outside an unimpeded view of its mer-
chandise and interior. This landmark building was the first
butt-glazed building in the country. It recently received the
AIA 25 Year Award. A recently concluded D|R retrospec-
tive, housed in the building since autumn 2009, had been
displaying vintage D|R furnishings and Marimekko dresses
from 1950s and 1960s, stirring Cambridgian memories.
“During the last ten years of his life, Ben was paralyzed
and in bed, so he couldn’t accompany me when I made an
appointment with Meg Winslow [Curator of Historical Col-
lections] to look at space at Mount Auburn,” recalls Jane
Thompson. “Earlier, while driving through the Cemetery,
The “Finland Designs” 50th Anniversary display (2010) in the
D|R building at 48 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA.
Photo: Peter Vanderwarker (Newton, MA)
I’d discovered a huge monument with my family name,
Fiske, on it, marking the lot of those I eventually learned
were my relatives. Through friends, we learned Mount
Auburn is an absolute treasure-trove of architects, not
to mention poets and other people, so we were very
affectionate about Mount Auburn.
“Then Jim Holman [Director of Cemetery Services Ad-
ministration] showed me the new space being developed,
Halcyon Garden, and I thought it was a grand site. I said,
‘Put me on the list.’ I went home and told Ben, and he was
delighted.
“When Ben died, landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand
had completed the design of Halcyon Garden. It was over-
looking Mary Baker Eddy’s monument, had birch trees,
and was absolutely amazing.
“I wanted to do something really special for Ben. I asked
sculptor Anne Lilly to design a mobile sculpture. I wasn’t
sure the Cemetery would allow that type of monument,
but the Trustees gave their approval and we went ahead
to create an ever-moving piece in a garden with a bench
overlooking the monument and Halcyon Lake.
“We studied the site and took pictures. We had Ms. Lilly
design something that would meet all of the conditions,
which were very tough: the sculpture had to be durable,
wind-activated, and in perpetual motion. We worked six or
eight months to resolve the formal
and technical problems, and then,
suddenly, there it was!
“I think of it as Perpetual
Motion or Perpetual Emotion.
It’s always throbbing, pulsing,
like a living thing!”
Wind-activated sculpture near Ben
Thompson’s monument, designed by
A.M. Lilly
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