Benjamin C. Thompson, known as Ben Thompson, was an Americanarchitect. He was one of eight architects who founded The Architects' Collaborative in 1945 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the most notable firms in post-war modernism, and then started his own firm, Benjamin Thompson and Associates, in 1967.
Thompson began his career as an architect in 1946, when he helped persuade Gropius and six other architects to form The Architects' Collaborative in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1953, he founded Design Research in Cambridge, a company that provided interior furnishings and accessories. Design Research was the first US importer and retailer of the Finnish clothing and textiles of Marimekko. The firm eventually added stores in New York and San Francisco. In 1969, he designed the company's revolutionary second Cambridge store, notable for its extreme openness and use of glass. In 1970, Thompson lost financial control and ownership of Design Research.
Practice and teaching
Thompson's interest in modernism was balanced by appreciation of older architecture. In the late 1950s, he renovated Harvard Yard's historic dormitories by updating their interior arrangements without visible exterior effect. Shortly thereafter he persuaded Harvard to remodel Boylston Hall rather than demolish it. During those years, Thompson taught architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and served as Chair of the Architecture Department 1964-1968. His 1966 essay, “Visual Squalor and Social Disorder”, argued for an urban architecture that would encourage, rather than discourage, joy and social life. To this end, in 1967 he proposed reviving Boston's obsolescent, historic wholesale food markets with food stalls, cafes, restaurants, and pushcarts appealing to the general public. As TAC grew, Thompson objected to the firm's acceptance of a number of controversial large commissions, including the Pan Am Building atop Grand Central Station in New York City, and the University of Baghdad project, commissioned by Iraq's military regime. He separated from TAC in late 1966 and started his own firm, Benjamin Thompson and Associates in 1967. His iconic five-story, all-glass showcase retail store for Design Research was opened in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968. Thompson is probably best known for a series of collaborations with the developer James W. Rouse, including the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Harborplace, South Street Seaport, Bayside Marketplace, and Jacksonville Landing.
Thompson, working for The Architects Collaborative, designed three major building groups for Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts during an 11-year period beginning 1961. These were the Academic Quadrangle, the Social Science Center, and the East Quadrangle. On the occasion of the University's 50th anniversary in 1999, it was observed that " has contributed more to the overall campus image than Benjamin Thompson". Thompson relied on a consistent vocabulary at Brandeis: low horizontal structures with heavy, flat overhanging roofs; structural concrete frames with non-bearing exterior walls; few visual tricks or trendiness; and an "almost Japanese attitude toward composition and siting". Thompson's buildings for Brandeis include:
Benjamin Thompson was first married to Mary Okes Thompson from 1942 to 1967. The Thompsons lived in a house designed by him and built in 1949 on Moon Hill Road in Lexington, Massachusetts. They had five children. In 1959, they purchased a seven-acre waterfront property in Barnstable where the family spent summers together. Thompson's second marriage was in 1969 to Jane Fiske McCullough, a writer and design critic, who handled his public relations and later became a collaborator on certain of his planning projects. He was Jane's fourth husband. They lived in Cambridge and Barnstable. Ben died in 2002 in his Cambridge home.
