In the latest instance of a potential threat to an important modern era school, the City of Cambridge is in the process of completing a Feasibility Study for Josep Lluis Sert’s Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School (1972) in which the preferred recommendation is the replacement of the school with a new building. This is Sert’s only primary school in the United States and it is located across the street from and complements his earlier Peabody Terrace Graduate Housing complex for Harvard University. Docomomo US/New England is working with a coalition of Cambridge residents, members of the local design community and an international roster of Sert scholars to raise awareness of the importance of this building, and to try to convince the City that despite the significant programmatic reworking required to comply with code and contemporary educational pedagogy, the building has tremendous latent potential and renovation remains a sound, economical and viable option.
