Evolution of the Prudential Center: 1954-1989

[NJBostonFan]

What is the 1985 Master Plan of the Prudential Center labled under in the Public Library?

[kz1000ps]

Sorry to get back so late, but to answer your question everything I posted here came from the government documents collection, and although I don't recall the title I'm pretty sure a search for "prudential center 1985" will do the trick.

[kz1000ps]

I stumbled upon a whole cache of images related to the creation of the Pru courtesy of this informative though extremely lengthy (400+ pages!) pdf document. It provides an in-depth look into the city of Boston, Prudential and the Turnpike Authority at mid-century, and includes some of the better writing I've read as to what led Boston into obsolescence at the time.

As for the pictures, this one dates to September 1953, and it shows the original plan for the site, long before Prudential had any stake in it. It was designed by Walter Gropius and Samuel Glaeser, and was to be called the "Back Bay Center":


By 1957, Cram & Ferguson were the lead architects, and this was released to the public on January 31st, 1957:


The large circular structure was to be the convention center, while the smaller one would've been a restaurant:




By mid-1958, the "final working plan" was in place:





April 16th, 1962: Prudential ordered the site's de-watering pumps shut down, and this was the result:


A couple site plans from the mid-'60s showing various proposals:




Rendering for 101 Huntington, then known as the "South East Office Tower":

[Ron Newman]

Those two circular buildings would have been cool.

[KentXie]

Great find!

[statler]

I love it when people go through the trouble of finding and posting stuff like this. Thanks, kz1000ps!

[czsz]

I'm probably alone on this, but I actually kinda like the Gropius design, on a conceptual, theoretical level.

[kz1000ps]

Yeah, I like it simply for its early-'50s vibe, which doesn't seem as sinister and overreaching as the majority of megaprojects to come in the next couple decades.

[StudentOfUrbanRenewal]

Yes, you've found my dissertation, completed at the University of California, Berkeley, in the field of History of Architecture & Urbanism. I am just now making final revisions for the book, to be called "Insuring the City," available next Spring. I hope you'll check it out!

[kz1000ps]

Hey man, great job! There's so much to chew on that it's two months after I found it and I'm still not done reading it yet.

[JohnAKeith]

The photo of the "lagoon"? What's the vantage point do you think? I can't place it. Presumably on Boylston Street looking South West toward the CSC? The street toward the left would be Huntington? The right, Mass Ave?

[kz1000ps]

John, you're correct in that it's from Boylston looking southwest, but what you're seeing are the apartment buildings that used to exist around Belvidere Street, the only remnants of this mini-neighborhood being what's left on Clearway and St. Germain Streets. The building to the right of the photo with the campanile occupied the Hilton's spot, and the prominent building near the left side stood about where the circular fountain at the CSC now is.

[JonFrum]

My father was a Boston policeman, and worked in headquarters on Berkeley st. He worked in Planning and Research, and through his work he got to go up in the Prudential tower while they were still building it. I think BPD was putting their radio antenna up on the top of the building, and that was the connection that got them in the building. The iron superstructure was done, but it was still wide open, with plywood floors and no walls yet, so the wind was whipping through. Scared the life out of him - I think he joked about having a laundry problem. ;-) I remember seeing the top of the open building from our house in Jamaica Plain.

The tragedy of the Prudential center is that it was developed exactly at the wrong time in history. If it had been built ten-fifteen years sooner, it would have been far more modest and less grating. If it had been held off for another twenty years, the backlash against modernism and context free architecture would have produced a much better fit.

[datadyne007]

Does anyone have any information as to why they lifted an American Elm to the top of the Sheraton after it was finished? I know the American Elm is a significant tree in Boston, but what exactly is this tradition?

[kz1000ps]

Isn't that an ironworkers' tradition? As in they always place a tree on the last steel beam to be erected, signifying completion of the superstructure....?

[datadyne007]

Originally Posted by kz1000ps

Isn't that an ironworkers' tradition? As in they always place a tree on the last steel beam to be erected, signifying completion of the superstructure....?

Thanks for the info. I had only noticed (and heard of) flags when buildings were topped out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topping_out

[JohnAKeith]

Insuring the City is a new book about Prudential Insurance's attempt to stabilize several major US cities by building "regional headquarters".

From Atlantic Cities:

The Prudential Center anchors the Boston skyline with its tall, gray tower. It is also a historical beacon, representing a midcentury moment when insurance companies such as Prudential were particularly aware of how their physical presence and civic engagement reflected upon their intangible product: financial security.

Looking to New York's Rockefeller Center, the creators of the Prudential Center aspired to use real estate development as a tool toward civic achievement, reinvigorating central Boston and integrating a large complex of buildings with new infrastructure for the automobile. Architectural historian Elihu Rubin tells the full story of "The Pru," placing it within the political, economic, and architectural contexts of the period. The Prudential Center played a pivotal role in the economic redevelopment of Boston and was arguably one of the most significant urban developments of the 1950s and '60s. It is an important story, and one that provides great insight into the evolution of the modern city in postwar America.

From the Yale University Press website:

The Prudential Center anchors the Boston skyline with its tall, gray tower. It is also a historical beacon, representing a midcentury moment when insurance companies such as Prudential were particularly aware of how their physical presence and civic engagement reflected upon their intangible product: financial security.

Looking to New York's Rockefeller Center, the creators of the Prudential Center aspired to use real estate development as a tool toward civic achievement, reinvigorating central Boston and integrating a large complex of buildings with new infrastructure for the automobile. Architectural historian Elihu Rubin tells the full story of "The Pru," placing it within the political, economic, and architectural contexts of the period. The Prudential Center played a pivotal role in the economic redevelopment of Boston and was arguably one of the most significant urban developments of the 1950s and '60s. It is an important story, and one that provides great insight into the evolution of the modern city in postwar America.

[datadyne007]

Elihu Rubin (the guy who did the dissertation and author of the book) is actually going to be at the BSA talk about Boston & The Skyscraper.

Refer to the event thread that was posted recently.

[whighlander]

All in all over the 50+ years of evolution the whole has turned-out to be quite an acceptable addition to Boston --- despite the ugliness of the tower's exteriior

It'll be interesting to see now how the gaps in the Boylston Streetwall and the air over the Pike gets filled in to complete the Pru from the front

I'm still expecting something to go where the Midtown is now located - -with [hoping and hopping] a Gerbil Tube

[davem]

I completely forgot I had these...