The Architects Collaborative (TAC) was an Americanarchitectural firm formed by eight architects that operated between 1945 and 1995 inCambridge, Massachusetts. The founding members wereNorman C. Fletcher (1917–2007),Jean B. Fletcher (1915–1965),John C. Harkness (1916–2016),Sarah P. Harkness (1914–2013),Robert S. McMillan (1916–2001),Louis A. McMillen (1916–1998),Benjamin C. Thompson (1918–2002), andWalter Gropius (1883–1969).^[1] TAC created many successful projects, and was well respected for its broad range of designs, being considered one of the most notable firms in post-war modernism.

Norman Fletcher,Louis McMillen,Robert McMillan, andBen Thompson first laid the conceptual foundation for what became the Architects Collaborative while they were classmates atYale University, where they discussed forming "the World Collaborative," which would be an ideal office combining painting, sculpture, and architecture.^[2]

Upon graduation,Norman Fletcher worked withJohn Harkness during the war atSkidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York, and later,John Harkness worked withJean Fletcher for Saarinen and Swanson^[3] inBloomfield Hills, Michigan the firm started byEliel Saarinen.Jean Fletcher andSarah Harkness had both studied at theCambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.^[2]

This group of friends were committed to forming a collaborative practice. To help them navigate the professional world and lend notability to the firm, they sought to add a senior practitioner.John Harkness pitched the idea of joining the Architects' Collaborative toWalter Gropius, who had asked Harkness to teach a master's class atHarvard. Walter Gropius agreed and became the eighth member of the group.^[2] Other principals came to include Richard Brooker,Alex Cvijanović, Herbert Gallagher, William Geddis, Roland Kluver, Peter Morton and H. Morse Payne, Jr.^[4]

The idea of "collaboration" was the basis of TAC. In the book about TAC she co-authored with Gropius, Sarah Harkness wrote that "There are two ways to go--towards competition or towards collaboration. A contest can be stimulating, but as a way of life competition is wasteful."^[5]

In a 2023 interview, Perry Neubauer who joined the firm in 1965, said "It was a different ballgame when I came up to Cambridge and worked at TAC. We would sit in a design meeting and grab the pencil out of each other’s hands. ”Hey, what do you think about this?” Anybody could say anything. You weren’t going to dispute things with Gropius, probably, But everyone thought they could offer an opinion. That was the strength of TAC."^[6]

As described by McMillen, conforming to the ideal of anonymity helped bind the office together.^[5] It was carried out in that an entire group of architects have their input on a project, rather than putting an emphasis on individualism. There would be a "partner-in-charge", who would meet with clients and have the final decision of what goes into the design. Originally, each of the eight partners would hold weekly meetings on a Thursday to discuss their projects and be open to design input and ideas. However, as the firm grew larger there were many more people on a team and it was more difficult to consolidate into one group. Therefore, many other "groups" of architects within the firm were formed and carried out the same original objective. The position of the firm's president would be rotated amongst the senior partners.

TAC's initial work consisted of residential projects, mainly single-family houses. The most notable design wasSix Moon Hill inLexington, Massachusetts, a community dwelling in which several of the houses were the residences of the founding partners, excluding Gropius. Another one of TAC's specialties in this period was school buildings, which included many elementary and secondary public schools throughout Massachusetts andNew England. TAC also designed many buildings for universities, among which was theHarvard Graduate Center, a small campus of dormitories and a building devoted to student activities.

King Faisal II had a bidding process for the redesign of the city of Bagdad in order to turn into a busting urban center, the process included many popular postwar architects includingFrank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius,Le Corbusier,Josep Lluís Sert, andAlvar Aalto.^[7] Gropius, alongside The Architects Collaborative designed and planned the entire campus for theUniversity of Baghdad, from 1958 to 1963.^[8][7] Only a few of Gropius' designs survived into the campus' final iteration, the faculty tower, a few classroom buildings, and the Open Mind monument.^[7] The project was met with both financial and political difficulties over several years which hampered a timely completion.^[8]

TAC's other work included many corporate, government, and recreational buildings in both the United States and internationally.

In its initial decades, TAC's architecture was mainly in theInternational Style, early examples of which had been created by Gropius and his colleagues at the Bauhaus and elsewhere. Starting in the 1970s, TAC's style largely shifted from modernism topostmodernism, which was generally coming into favor in the architectural field. Their postmodernist works includedCopley Place, an enclosed shopping mall with a hotel, offices, and formerly a cinema; Heritage on the Garden, an upscale residential-retail complex facing theBoston Public Garden;^[9] and the Flagship Wharf Condominiums at theCharlestown Navy Yard.

As the firm's staff increased and the scope of the projects became more complex, an office inRome was opened in the 1960s, which oversaw projects primarily in Europe and theMiddle East. This was followed by the opening of an office inSan Francisco in 1985.

Gropius was a part of TAC until his death in 1969 at age 86. The group continued on, but the firm fell into financial problems in the 1980s. This was largely due to TAC being unable to pay expenses which they owed to various financial institutions and other corporations. Among other things, the firm had been losing money in unbuilt designs, especially in theMiddle East. TAC declared bankruptcy and closed in April 1995. In response, The Massachusetts Committee for the Preservation of Architectural Records,Harvard University, theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, and theBoston Architectural Center worked together to retrieve TAC's drawings and records. The firm's collection of approximately 100,000 slides is held in the Special Collection of Frances Loeb Library at theHarvard Graduate School of Design.^[10] The remainder of the firm's archive, including drawings, specifications, models, presentation boards, microfilm, and additional archival materials are in the collection of theMIT Museum.^[11] While the innovative process the TAC architects believed so deeply was carried out successfully, it did not become the norm for architectural firms.

For the most part TAC functioned as a team rather than on an individual basis, which was considered a unique method of architectural practice, which reflected Gropius' philosophy of working collaboratively with others when he was aBauhaus instructor inGermany prior to TAC.

• The Architects Collaborative, 1945-1965

• "TAC: Principles Process & Product", Currie, Leonard J. and Currie, Virginia M., Process: Architecture, V 19 pp 40–45, October, 1980ISBN 0-89860-045-6
• "The Architects Collaborative 1945-1965"
• "The Architects Collaborative Suspends Operations", Progressive Architecture, v76, June 1995.
• "Thirty-five Years of TAC", Harkness, John C., Process: Architecture, v19, pp 11–15, October, 1980ISBN 0-89860-045-6

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