Five Fields is a modernist residential neighborhood in Lexington,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

developed starting in 1951. It consists of 68 half-acre (0.2 hectare) lots with modernist houses on an 80-acre site designed by

The Architects Collaborative The Architects Collaborative (TAC) was an American architectural firm formed by eight architects that operated between 1945 and 1995 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The founding members were Norman C. Fletcher (1917–2007), Jean B. Fletcher (19 ...

(TAC). Partners in charge from TAC were Norman Fletcher and

Louis McMillen Louis Albert McMillen (October 24, 1916 – May 4, 1998) was an American architect who was one of the original founding partners of The Architects Collaborative with Walter Gropius and six other architects. McMillen was part of TAC from its foundi ...

with Richard Morehouse as senior associate. A 20-acre portion is held in common and includes community facilities such as a

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built abo ...

and

playground A playground, playpark, or play area is a place designed to provide an environment for children that facilitates play, typically outdoors. While a playground is usually designed for children, some are designed for other age groups, or people wi ...

. Five Fields was one of a series of "innovative contemporary housing developments" in Lexington, starting with

Six Moon Hill Six Moon Hill is a residential neighborhood and historic district of mid-century modern houses in Lexington, Massachusetts. Description Incorporated in 1947, the community originally encompassed 28 houses which were built between 1947 and 1953. ...

(

, 1948), and then Five Fields (1951), Peacock Farm ( Walter Pierce and Danforth Compton, 1952), and Turning Mill / Middle Ridge ( Carl Koch, 1955)."Post 1940 Period", ''Comprehensive Cultural Resources Survey'', Town of Lexington, Massachusett

Several other modern housing developments were built later. Like the

Case Study Houses The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by '' Arts & Architecture'' magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United Sta ...

in Los Angeles and the other Lexington developments, Five Fields was "intended as a corrective to the cheap historicism of many new developments".

Jane Thompson Jane Thompson, AICP (June 30, 1927 – August 22, 2016) was an American urbanist, designer and planner, with an international career exceeding forty years. Biography Thompson (née Fiske) was educated in the fine and applied arts at Vassar Colleg ...

Alexandra Lange Alexandra Lange is an American Architecture criticism, architecture and design critic and author based in New York. She won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, as a contributing writer for Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Citylab. The author of a ser ...

, Ruth A. Peltason, ''Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes'', 2010, , p. 11 (cf.

Design Research (store) Design Research (abbreviated and trademarked as D/R) was a retail store founded in 1953 by Ben Thompson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and which introduced the concept of lifestyle store. In the 1970s under subsequent ownership, it became a chain ...

)

The development was established on the former Cutler dairy farm, near the Waltham line. Stone walls divided the area into five fields. To keep costs down, the houses were originally limited to three standard plans, which allowed the use of common, mass-produced components.Richard Kollen, ''Lexington: From Liberty's Birthplace to Progressive Suburb'', 2004, , n.p.

Notes

Bibliography

* Denise Dube, "Modern Art: Lexington's Other Historic Home", ''North Bridge Magazine'', Fall 2008, p. 18–26. * Amanda Kolson Hurley, "The Rise of the Radical Suburbs", ''

Architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

''
April 9, 2019
adapted from her book ''Radical Suburbs: Experimental Living on the Fringes of the American City'', 2019, {{isbn, 1948742365 Modernist architecture in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Lexington, Massachusetts Houses in Middlesex County, Massachusetts 1950s architecture