MIT's campus runs along the north bank of the Charles River and is architecturally schizophrenic in the best possible way. The older domed buildings of the main group give way, as you move east toward Kendall Square, to increasingly ambitious contemporary architecture: Frank Gehry's Stata Center (Building 32), which looks like a crumpled aluminium puzzle; Steven Holl's Simmons Hall dormitory, its facade punctured by hundreds of small windows in shifting patterns; and the Kresge Auditorium, balanced on three points.
The MIT Museum, now relocated to the Kendall Square area, has interactive exhibits on robotics, holography, and kinetic sculpture. Arthur Ganson's mechanical sculptures in the lobby alone are worth the trip. The campus is open to the public; the MIT welcome centre on Massachusetts Avenue runs walking tours. Kendall/MIT station on the Red Line drops you right at the entrance, and the Kendall Band — a kinetic musical sculpture between the subway tracks — plays when you pull the levers on the platform.