Ray and Maria Stata Center

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MALE SPEAKER: Where do we put the dirt?

MALE SPEAKER: Right.

[LAUGHTER]

MALE SPEAKER: At the photographer.

[MUSIC - RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, "FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE"]

PRESENTER: The next three years will be tremendously exciting.

I can't wait to have you all back to see how well it's turned out, and to explore in real life what we've only just glimpsed in the models.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

PRESENTER: Maria Stata once wrote some beautiful lines about MIT as a modern agora. The agora was the gathering place of ancient Greece. The center of commerce. The place of interchange, and learning, and doing. The agora is starting to stir. The thoughts and bits are beginning to fly and intersect.

PRESENTER: There's much work to be done, and a spectacular venue in which to carry it out.

MALE SPEAKER: I was still astonished, when I moved in, at the beauty of it, and the fun of it.

FEMALE SPEAKER: My favorite word is vital.

MALE SPEAKER: It is light and airy, and that is the first impression you get of this building.

MALE SPEAKER: This is a research environment, so you want people to be able to meet easily and frequently, and bump into each other.

MALE SPEAKER: The sight lines go through three or four floors. We can be sitting up somewhere and see someone down there.

MALE SPEAKER: Community space of all shapes and sizes-- with Frank Gehry you can literally say shapes and sizes--

PRESENTER: And there's no doubt that the fact that we have these closer connections will substantially enhance the creativity of those who work here, and others around the campus.