If you fol­low archi­tec­ture at all, you’d know that the famous firm of Skid­more, Owings, and Mer­rill (SOM) was cho­sen to fin­ish the design of what­ever new struc­ture will occupy New York’s World Trade Cen­ter site. (George Pataki insists on call­ing the still-nameless project “The Free­dom Tower.”) SOM, con­sid­ered a pow­er­house of sky­scraper design (think Sears Tower), was founded a long time ago by two alums from MIT (S & M) and one from UIUC (O).

So imag­ine my hor­ror when I learned that SOM was respon­si­ble for one of the ugli­est build­ings on our cam­pus: Build­ing 37.

Aes­thet­ics aside, build­ing 37, which houses the Cen­ter for Space Research, is actu­ally named after a guy who deserved the honor: Ronald McNair, the MIT alum who died in the Chal­lenger explosion.