page_title: Technology Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Technology Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Built as a temporary facility in 1943, Building 20 (in the foreground)survived until 1998 and housed research activities in a wide variety of fields. At center of photo is Polaroid Corporation headquarters in 549 Technology Square, surrounded by three 9-story office buildings. Draper Laboratory is visible at center right edge of photo.
context_page_description: Technology Square, nicknamed Tech Square, is a commercial office building complex in the Kendall Square neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, immediately adjacent to the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
context_section_description: Tech Square was jointly developed by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes (CCF) and MIT on a 14-acre (5.7 ha) site which had previously housed a tenement (demolished in 1957) and a Lever Brothers soap factory (closed in 1959). The architects were Eduardo Catalano and Pietro Belluschi. The original architectural style was Brutalist (especially the central building), with a large open plaza paved with concrete and featuring wide shallow stepped levels.
  The first building (545) opened in 1963, the second (575) in 1964. Two more buildings were erected in 1966 and 1967, forming a U facing Main Street made up of three nine-story buildings, and a three-story building in the middle. 
  In the 1970s, Draper Laboratory was built north of the original buildings, in the lot between them and Broadway, and was numbered 555. 
  Polaroid had its corporate headquarters at 549 Tech Square, the three-story building in the center of the courtyard, from 1966-1998.In 1999-2002, the small building was demolished and an additional four buildings were added as infill to the former open plaza. All the older buildings were reworked into a more-contemporary style, and the combined complex was renumbered as 100–700. The comprehensive renovation and expansion was designed by Perkins & Will.
  The original complex had no street-level storefronts, though it did house a small branch bank. The newer buildings add multiple storefronts with restaurants and retail properties aligned along the edge of the public sidewalk, rather than set back from the property lines as in its original conception.
  MIT sold its interest in Tech Square in 1973-74 to CCF. CCF later went into bankruptcy, and the complex was successively owned by Mitsubishi Bank, the Prudential Life Insurance Company, and Beacon Capital Partners, until it was repurchased by MIT in 2001. Alexandria Real Estate Equities bought the complex for $600m in 2006, and it is now officially called Alexandria Technology Square on some documentation, although the original name is still used almost exclusively.
caption: Historic photo shows three 9-story buildings surrounding low-rise 549 Technology Square (at center), with Draper Lab visible (at right edge of picture)
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