Interesting leads to interesting

I spent this morning polluting some young minds at MIT - very kind (foolish?) of them to ask me and a bunch of smart kids.  I met Beth Coleman (who kindly invited me to MIT) in the Stata Center designed by Gehry Partners.  The architecture is stunning - provocative, challenging and interesting.

Even the cafe was interesting - a whole section of new recipes called R&D

And their folklore is fascinating - the genesis of the word 'hack'.

It made me think about what a different environment this is to most universities, and how diametrically opposed it is to somewhere like Oxford where I studied.  This is all about provocation, the new, thinking different, challenging everything whereas the architecture of Oxford made me feel like you are receiving ancient wisdom which must not be tampered with.