The Architects Collaborative

Norman Fletcher, Louis McMillen, Robert McMillan, and Ben Thompson first laid the conceptual foundation for what became the Architects Collaborative while they were classmates at Yale University, where they discussed forming "the World Collaborative", which would be an ideal office combining painting, sculpture, and architecture. Upon graduation, Norman Fletcher worked with John Harkness during the war at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York, and later, John Harkness worked with Jean Fletcher for Saarinen and Swanson in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Jean Fletcher and Sarah Harkness had both studied at the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. ==Design philosophy and organization==

The idea of collaboration was the basis of TAC. In the book about TAC she co-authored with Gropius, Sarah Harkness wrote that "There are two ways to go--towards competition or towards collaboration. A contest can be stimulating, but as a way of life competition is wasteful." As described by McMillen, conforming to the ideal of anonymity helped bind the office together. It was carried out in that an entire group of architects have their input on a project, rather than putting an emphasis on individualism. There would be a "partner-in-charge", who would meet with clients and have the final decision of what goes into the design. Originally, each of the eight partners would hold weekly meetings on a Thursday to discuss their projects and be open to design input and ideas. However, as the firm grew larger there were many more people on a team and it was more difficult to consolidate into one group. Therefore, many other "groups" of architects within the firm were formed and carried out the same original objective. The position of the firm's president would be rotated amongst the senior partners. ==Work==

TAC's initial work consisted of residential projects, mainly single-family houses. The most notable design was Six Moon Hill in Lexington, Massachusetts, a community dwelling in which several of the houses were the residences of the founding partners, excluding Gropius. Another one of TAC's specialties in this period was school buildings, which included many elementary and secondary public schools throughout Massachusetts and New England. TAC also designed many buildings for universities, among which was the Harvard Graduate Center, a small campus of dormitories and a building devoted to student activities. King Faisal II had a bidding process for the redesign of the city of Bagdad in order to turn into a busting urban center, the process included many popular postwar architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Josep Lluís Sert, and Alvar Aalto. Gropius, alongside The Architects Collaborative designed and planned the entire campus for the University of Baghdad, from 1958 to 1963. and the Flagship Wharf Condominiums at the Charlestown Navy Yard. ==Later years and demise==

As the firm's staff increased and the scope of the projects became more complex, an office in Rome was opened in the 1960s, which oversaw projects primarily in Europe and the Middle East. This was followed by the opening of an office in San Francisco in 1985. Gropius was a part of TAC until his death in 1969 at age 86. The group continued on, but the firm fell into financial problems in the 1980s. This was largely due to TAC being unable to pay expenses owed to various financial institutions and other corporations. Among other things, the firm had been losing money in unbuilt designs, especially in the Middle East. TAC declared bankruptcy and closed in April 1995. In response, The Massachusetts Committee for the Preservation of Architectural Records, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Boston Architectural Center worked together to retrieve TAC's drawings and records. The firm's collection of approximately 100,000 slides is held in the Special Collection of Frances Loeb Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The remainder of the firm's archive, including drawings, specifications, models, presentation boards, microfilm, and additional archival materials are in the collection of the MIT Museum. While the innovative process the TAC architects believed so deeply was carried out successfully, it did not become the norm for architectural firms. ==Legacy==

For the most part TAC functioned as a team rather than on an individual basis, which was considered a unique method of architectural practice, which reflected Gropius' philosophy of working collaboratively with others when he was a Bauhaus instructor in Germany prior to TAC. ==Notable works==