D
1950
Graduate Center, Harvard University, Cambridge

When Walter Gropius commissioned fabric designs by Anni Albers for the extensive new graduate dormitories at Harvard, he requested that the materials should have a “masculine” character. For the bedspreads, Albers designed multiple prototypes on the loom—experimenting with materials, construction, and colour effects—to create three versions of low-maintenance plaid textiles to enliven the space and conceal “dirty shoes and cigarette holes.” In a 1958 lecture at Yale, Albers proudly noted that the bedspreads had lasted eight years before needing to be replaced. To separate the sleeping areas and provide privacy for double-occupancy rooms, Albers conceived a durable fabric of heavy black cotton relieved by threads of natural bast. The fabric’s weight ensured that it hung in a flat vertical plane creating an almost solid division between the two spaces. It fulfilled Albers’s idea that textiles can be a “contributing thought” to architectural design.