Boston's Best Modern Urbanism

[ablarc]

BOSTON?S BEST MODERNIST URBANISM

With their powerfully jagged sculptural forms, I find modern buildings like Peabody Terrace and the BU Law Tower to be immensely gratifying to drive by on the riverbank roads ? but they don?t do much for the pedestrian.

And an urban building?s quality is best gauged by a person on foot.

Skyscrapers like the Federal Reserve Building and the Pru project a certain totemic presence that serves them well as sculpture or icon, and monuments like City Hall or the Hurley Building are also sculpturally arresting ? but none of them do much for the pedestrian.

An urban building is one you?re glad to walk by or through.

Boston has plenty of good urban buildings and plenty of good modern buildings, but it?s hard to even populate a poll with buildings that are both.

Here?s an attempt:

Holyoke Center (Sert, 1961-65)
Christian Science Center (Pei, 1968-73)
Five Cents Savings Bank [Borders] (Kallmann and McKinnell, 1972)
Hancock Tower (Pei, 1968-76)
Mandarin Oriental (CBT, 2005-08)
Apple Store (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, 2008)
75 State Street (Gund, 1986-88)
Copley Place/Prudential Mall (TAC, 1980-84)
Design Research [Crate and Barrel] and rest of ?Architects? Corner? (Thompson et al., 1969ff)
Rowe?s Wharf (SOM, 1982-85)

Slim pickin?s for a city with such a distinguished past.

Vote for three (3).

[statler]

Borders
CSC
Rowes Wharf

Question:
Can City Hall be made pedestrian friendly without destroying its 'arresting' sculptural quality?

[Beton Brut]

Originally Posted by statler

Question:
Can City Hall be made pedestrian friendly without destroying its 'arresting' sculptural quality?

Of course! It will likely require "regime change." Once the numb-skulls have been sent packing, call Norman Foster, or Ken Yeang, or maybe Zaha Hadid.

...And ablarc -- smart survey. There are no "wrong" answers...

[vanshnookenraggen]

I voted Five Cents Savings Bank because it is more classically modern than Rowes Wharf, though I believe RW is the best Post-Modern building in Boston.

[Ron Newman]

I very reluctantly left out the Hancock Tower -- it would have gotten my fourth vote if I had been allowed one. I picked Borders (but only now with the bookstore use -- I wouldn't have voted for it as a bank), Rowes Wharf, and Design Research. I hope whoever next moves into DR knows how to use the building in the manner it was intended.

I don't like seeing Copley Place and Prudential combined into one 'building' because they are very different even though connected to each other. Prudential relates much better to the surrounding city than Copley Place does.

[Joe_Schmoe]

Copley Place is hands down the worst both urbanistically and architecturally. What a blight!

[czsz]

I'm with most on Borders and Thompson, but I think Holyoke Center deserves its due. It's a far more welcoming complex than Rowes Wharf - though, admittedly, this has more to do with a better location (and a less intimidating landlord).

I would have voted for the Christian Science center, but monumentality is much less of a challenge for most buildings of this period.

[garbribre]

What? No State Transportation Building in Park Square?

I have always been ga-ga over the Boston Five. It's the best modern urban building--a grand, classicist structure, imo.

Sadly, Boston has so few that fit these (your) criteria, ablarc.

I think you are forgetting one other potential choice in Boston, maybe two more in Cambridge that would fit the criteria. (I will not suggest them, just because... okay, to torture you--heheh.)

By default, I am also choosing Holyoke Center and Design Research--from the street/sidewalk side only.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Oh shi... I didn't see Design Research. Can I change my vote?

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by statler

Can City Hall be made pedestrian friendly without destroying its 'arresting' sculptural quality?

Shrink the plaza and install shops along Congress Street.

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by garbribre

I think you are forgetting one other potential choice in Boston, maybe two more in Cambridge that would fit the criteria. (I will not suggest them, just because... okay, to torture you--heheh.)

Gonna have to think about this.

[JSic]

Can someone please post a picture of the 5 Cents Savings Bank?

I was going to vote for the Christiab Science Center, but I'll withhold my vote until I know what the above is...

[JSic]

^Disregard, I know the Borders building (gotta read more caredully!).

I voted for the Christian Science Center.

[ablarc]

After 20 votes, the runaway winner is 5 Cents Savings (Borders). I think it's interesting that this building's architects are Kallmann and McKinnell, who also designed the much-hated City Hall.

The two runner-ups are Design Research (Crate & Barrel) and the Holyoke Center. Like the winner, these two are streetwall buildings, quite stylish, and unapologetically modern.

All three can be classified as Brutalist. Two out of three are in Cambridge.

What can we learn?

[cden4]

They all interact with the sidewalk and streetscape quite well. Maybe they didn't initially but they do now. It shows that even modern buildings can be adapted to have good urban form. Now if only we can activate the ground level(s) of City Hall!

[Beton Brut]

Holyoke Center would have been my 4th choice. I like the building; even more, I like how it's grown into its place as a focal point in the Square, a urbanistic role equal to the building's scale. The Mass Ave plaza is an active meeting-place and a great perch for people-watchers in warmer months; the Mt Auburn side is sunny and quieter -- book and coffee territory. Dunster Street has retail to engage the passerby, but (ironically) the Holyoke Street facade is a Chinese wall. This failing alone kept it off my list.

My picks:

With Kallmann McKinnell's little masterpiece, the scale elevates the building's stature. I also love the details that show the craft of the building's structure. The spirit of Kahn and Aalto are very strong here -- timeless and humane Modernism. Also consider the juxtaposition of the Winthrop Building across Washington Street; it's like a good piano recital, a little Bach, a little Shostakovitch.

Pei's CSC is another masterpiece. Corbu's sculpturalism, Kahn's timelessness, Chandigarh or Dhaka in miniature. Only the most sensitive intervention on this site should be allowed.

And Ben Thompson's concrete display case. It serves its purpose well as a retail store and an urban corner-anchor to one of Cambridge's most architecturally eclectic streets. It plays quietly and well with its neighbors. The mystery of the dark, compressed passageway to Mt Auburn Street, and the rewarding release of the small court yard you encounter, are hallmarks of smart design.

[Ron Newman]

Holyoke Center was hated until Au Bon Pain moved in. I don't remember what was there before, but it wasn't a high-traffic-generating use.

Boston Five Cents Savings Bank works because its current tenant is Borders which makes fine use of the extensive glass facade and the plaza outside. As a bank, this was not an interesting building and it didn't contribute much to street life.

Design Research was a cool building with its original tenant, and still is one with Crate & Barrel, but will whoever moves in next understand what to do with it?

[briv]

All three do pay special attention to the way they interact with the city at ground level. I think the Design Research building and 5 Cents Savings Bank, especially, are forerunners of whats been called today the New Brutalism, a more tempered, softer, open and glassy descendant of the old Brutalism.

Now if they'd only remove that gawd-awful Irish Famine Memorial from the plaza in front of the 5 Cents. That's gotta be the worst, most over-the-top piece of public art in Boston.

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by Ron Newman

Holyoke Center was hated until Au Bon Pain moved in. I don't remember what was there before, but it wasn't a high-traffic-generating use.

It was an upmarket men's clothing store, Ron. Wrong use for the space.

[ablarc]

Originally Posted by garbribre

What? No State Transportation Building in Park Square?

A lumbering hippo.

I have always been ga-ga over the Boston Five. It's the best modern urban building--a grand, classicist structure, imo.

Like a Gothic cathedral, it's all either structure or glass.

Sadly, Boston has so few that fit these (your) criteria, ablarc.

Yeah, how do you explain that? And much of the best stuff dates from the Sixties and Seventies, when architects weren't supposed to know how to design in cities.

I think you are forgetting one other potential choice in Boston...

Clue us in.

...maybe two more in Cambridge that would fit the criteria. (I will not suggest them, just because... okay, to torture you--heheh.)

Is one of them the Harvard building on Mt. Auburn Street that houses the Globe Corner Bookstore?

By default, I am also choosing Holyoke Center and Design Research--from the street/sidewalk side only.

Cambridge seems to be doing better than Boston.