Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
structures they might need to pursue that agenda. In the 1950s, entrepre-
neurial scientists like Roger Revelle, Lloyd Berkner, and Harry Wexler
capitalized on a spike in government interest in geophysical science to
garner financial support for a wide range of projects in atmospheric sci-
ence. As the decade came to a close, leaders in atmospheric science turned
their attention to building a permanent home for these efforts. Their vision
became the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, pro-
nounced “n-car”), and, like the scientific pursuits it was meant to support,
it bore the marks of its Cold War origins.
When you read “NCAR” on a page, it is easy to forget that the letters
stand for a physical institution. In print, it blends with the era's myriad
acronyms, a set of letters stamped on stationary indicating an elite atmo-
spheric science club. But NCAR consists of real buildings that house real
scientific and administrative equipment meant to serve real people. It also
has a real geography, and thinking about the geography of NCAR is help-
ful for understanding how the institution reflects the peculiarities of atmo-
spheric science as a Cold War pursuit in the 1950s and 1960s.
It may be more helpful to say that NCAR has
geographies,
or at least
that the geography of NCAR is striking at a number of different levels.
First and most noticeably, NCAR's headquarters, the Mesa Laboratory,
is a geographical and architectural marvel in and of itself. The massive
beige concrete structure sits high in the foothills of Boulder, Colorado,
against the severe peaks of the Flatirons, blending remarkably well into
the stark landscape. Designed by I. M. Pei, the building is a collection of
vertical towers and labyrinthine corridors. The towers look imposing from
the outside, but from the inside they are all but invisible unless you are
actually in one of them and looking out its windows. Past the visitors' area
at the main entrance, the Mesa Lab seems to have no center. Pei cultivated
this sensation by design. The towers were meant to provide quiet spaces
to work, but the rest of the building was made to foster casual interactions
between scientists in communal spaces.
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Pei consciously created a build-
ing without what he later called a “conventional scale” in order to foster an
unconventional form of Cold War science.
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The Mesa Lab did not open
its doors until 1966, but its design and internal geography reflect the vision
articulated by the institution's founders in 1960.
NCAR's geography extends beyond the architectural geography of the
Mesa Lab. During my first visit to the institution in 2007, I went to the
