Gates of Harvard Yard - Bookstore talk and book signing with Blair Kamin
Date: Saturday, October 24th, 2026
Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm
Location: (words) Bookstore, 179 Maplewood Ave, Maplewood, NJ 07040
Tickets: This event is free and open to the public, click here to pre-order Gates of Harvard Yard
Harvard was founded in 1636, but its signature gates were mostly constructed in the past 125 years. This new edition of Gates of Harvard Yard (Harvard University Press) features beautifully illustrated essays and includes a new afterword by the book’s editor, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin, as well as a fresh chapter on Harvard Yard's latest gate, built in 2020 and inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
In this slide presentation, held in association with the Harvard Club of New Jersey, Blair will discuss the beauty, history, legacy and lore of the Harvard Yard gates and place them in a broader context of other American campus gates and such famous entries as Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Followed by a book signing.
Blair Kamin is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and numerous other awards, including the Order of Lincoln, Illinois’ highest civilian honor. Born in Red Bank, N.J., he is a graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Architecture.
During a Nieman journalism fellowship at Harvard during the 2012-13 academic year, Blair became fascinated by the 25 gates that enclose Harvard Yard and co-taught a class about them during Harvard’s January term. The eight-day class led to a thirteen-year journey that has culminated in a new clothbound edition of the widely-praised guidebook Gates of Harvard Yard.