Miniature Harvard: Seaweed Trees, Thread Trolley Track

If the University were 600 times smaller, or if Widener Library were 600 times larger, Thomas B. Pitman '14 would have had nothing to do in 1936. But circumstances favored Pitman: Harvard then commissioned him to construct the world's smallest university. For the modest sum of $40,000, he did indeed build it a perfect reproduction of its financier now on permanent display on the main floor of Widener.

Two other Pitman models on the same floor show University and town buildings around what is now Harvard Square as they were in 1667 and 1775. Nearly 900 hand-carved buildings in the 1936 miniature stand on a 100 pound 11 x 4 feet rectangular base. The most difficult of these to make, according to the artists who worked on the model, was the replice, of massive and Victories Memorial Hall, in the Lillipulian Version, its 305 feet length is reducted to about six inches, with the spire rising to a height of 4 1/2 inches. The spire, and buttresses of the hall, like all the more intricate designs in the model, were constructed of easily workable brass, while the bodies of the buildings were constructed of either savogran, a hard plastic similar to plaster of parts, or carved from wood.

In the tiny Yard, a minute status of John Harvard sits in place before University Hall, as solemn in miniature as in life size, Diminutive hand-painted copper-wire figures people the paths and streets around him.

A measure of the artists' accuracy appears in University Hall's ivy which follows the pattern of the living vine. At the rear of the Hall, the Yard's lone pine tree stands among the familiar elms, oaks and maples. Both the positions and the species of the model's 2,500 trees were mapped by student workers.

Sprinkled Grass

Pitman remembers a woman who came into the studio to see the model before it was completed and was thrilled at discovering the reproduction of her own house. "She also noticed," he recalls, "that we had put one of her trees in front of the wrong window."

Most of the trees are made of seawood, dried and glued to small wires before receiving as many as 22 coats of shellec.

Real grass was dried, powdered, and sprinkled over the University courtyards and Charles River Banks. Over 1000 trolley cars and automobiles jam the streets in their customary inextricable tangle. For days, the artists struggled to paint trolley rails, but couldn't make the two-dimensional lines realistic. Finally they hit upon the idea of using shellacked threads, and finished the track-laying in half an hour.

Architectural students made several photographs of every building to be included in the modern model, but pictures for the earlier scenes were more difficult to obtain. In many cases neither sketches nor blueprints could be found.

To construct these models, Rupert B. Lillie '35 first deived into the archives of the State Houses, Country Courthouse and City Hall to complete plans for the buildings. Occasionally, he had to rely on wills which described parts of houses "the northeast living room to may son Harvey the two bedrooms in the West wing to my daughter Mary."

Matched Puffs

All three models have backdrops of the Boston skyline painted by Henry Brooks '22. The two and three-dimensional sections are blended so carefully that the observer may never notice the transition. Details like puffs of smoke and shades of color match perfectly.

Since the 1936 model represents the University as it stood on its 300th anniversary, the most likely date for the reproduction of the future Harvard is 2036. This model would include such post-1936 buildings as Littauer, the Graduate Center and Lamont Libraries, as well as future buildings.