Located on a triangular parcel, Cambridge Center was designed as a mixed-use development project in an area known as Kendall Square. Safdie's master plan called for several mid- and high-rise office and research buildings, a 25-storey hotel, and a street-level retail centre. The hotel encloses Cambridge Plaza and is the primary public focal point of the complex. The plaza paving and features were designed by world-renowned artist Karl Schlamminger of Germany.

This nondenominational sacred and meditative building juxtaposes two very different spaces. A terraced garden rich in flowering trees offers a place for personal contemplation. Through its glazed, pyramidal roof visitors see the changing seasons of the campus outside. A 100-seat sanctuary contained by rounded, apselike concrete walls, rises to a height of 27 feet. For maximum flexibility this sanctuary room has no dominant axis; it frequently functions as a home for musical performances of varying sizes. Skylights flood the walls with light from above and large-scale prisms fixed in the skylights refract the sun's full spectrum. The exterior of the building is a cylindrical oxidized copper drum penetrated on the west by the garden space. A tower timepiece marks the entrance to the chapel.

Simple moves of form and orientation combine to create a unique place for contemplation and gathering in a busy campus setting. Skylights and prisms wash glowing patterns of light across the chapel walls throughout the course of the day.

Letter from F.W. Putnam to John William Dawson, written from Cambridge, Mass., dated 28th, 1883.

Letter to Frederick Cheever Shattuck from Charles W. Eliot, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Eliot would like Osler to spend a year at Harvard as the endowed professor of Hygiene. The duties of the position are yet to be invented; the University hopes that Osler will be the man to invent them.

Letter from Jane L. Gray to John William Dawson, written from Cambridge, Mass..

Letter from Alexander Agassiz to John William Dawson, written from Cambridge.