Baker House - The Historical Collection
This site has a bunch of stuff relating to Baker House, or more officially “The Everett Moore Baker House of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology”. Baker House is one of the undergraduate dorms at MIT, but it's more than just a pile of bricks designed by a pretty good architect and named after a pretty nice guy.
For us, Baker House was home. The friends we made there helped keep us sane during our stay at MIT. And a lot of those friendships are still going strong, long after leaving MIT and Baker House – on our way to conquering the world…
And even if we are occupied with most important things, still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by good and kinds feelings which made us, perhaps better than we are. You must know there is nothing higher or stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a good deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If people carry many such memories with them into life, they are safe to the end of their days, and if a person has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.
Dostoevsky, 'The Brothers Karamazov'
The “Baker Spirit” lives on !
Baker 75th Anniversary / Reunion
May 31-June 2, 2024
Here's the link to the Baker 75th Picture Gallery (over 800 photos!)
Saturday "Happy Hour" pictures from the MIT photographer
Sunday Brunch pictures from the MIT photographer
Group photo! (June 2, 2024)
That's the thumbnail, down below…
Click here or on the thumbnail for the 46 MB high-resolution image
“High-resolution” means that you can read nametags if you zoom way in…
When viewing the high-resolution image on a desktop/laptop, you should see names when you mouse over faces.
(once the massive 46 MB image loads, sometimes you have to refresh the page (ctrl-R) to get the javascript working to display names…)
Clicking in a circle toggles the display of all names.
So what is where on this website? Here's a quick guide...
Alvar Aalto: The man who dreamed up a home for us…
Everett Moore Baker: The place is named is his honor…
Building W7 (the building itself)
- Architectural Significance: The place really is something special…
- Construction: The construction of “Building W7”
- Renovations: The major renovations in the late 1990s
- Data Statistics: Floor plans, room sizes, and other nerdy numbers
Timeline: When did that happen?
Pictures: Mostly historical. And we're still looking for the House Slide Collection…
"I Remember When...": Stories, memories, reminisces…
Who's Who
- Housemasters: In loco parentis. Faculty Residents / Housemasters / Heads of House
- House Officers: Summary table of The House Committees (1949-1970) and Executive Councils (1970-today). The house grease…
- Year-by-Year: A detailed list of everyone involved in the running of Baker House, everyone to helped make a community. The greasy ones, the self-important ones, and the truly significant ones…
- Alumni Sightings: Bakerites in the news…
Documents: 4000-plus pages of house documents
Giving: How to give back to Baker House. A listing of many options…
Nocturnal Workaholics
From the smithsonian.com website:
“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology chose beavers a century ago as mascots because, like MIT students, they were skilled engineers and nocturnal workaholics.”