The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University ,24 Quincy StreetCambridge, Boston, MA 02138, completed in 1963, is the only building on the North American continent designed by the famous Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. Despite the controversy over the wisdom of placing a building of such modern design in a traditional location, Le Corbusier felt that a building devoted to the visual arts must be an experience of freedom and unbound creativity. A traditional building for the visual arts would have been a contradiction. The Carpenter Center represents Corbusier’s attempt to create a “synthesis of the arts,” the union of architecture with painting, sculpture, through his innovative design. The building was completed in 1963, made possible by a gift from Alfred St. Vrain Carpenter, and the intent to house the artistic entities of Harvard College under one roof came to fruition in 1968 as the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, renamed in 2019 as the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies.