What is the purpose of public architecture and does Boston’s City Hall fit the bill? This Friday we’ll explore the affordability and practicality of plans to move City Hall.
Call it brutalist architecture or just plain brutal - we want to know what you think about Government Center Plaza, add a comment here.
Listen to the full show:
Plus, in our web specials:the original sketch of City Hall, and images past and present of Boston’s brutalist masterpiece…
Radio Boston: Boston City Hall, Brutalist Masterpiece, or Just Brutal?
Airdate: January 04, 2008
- Guests:
Joan Goody, Co-Founder of Goody Clancy Architecture Planning Preservation
Fred Kent, President of the Project for Public Spaces
Web Specials
The original sketch of Boston City Hall. Courtesy of Kallman McKinnel & Wood Architects. (Click to englarge.) The designers turned to Brutalism, with the intentionof conveying "the openness and dignity of civic governance."
Click on any image above to enlarge. From Left to Right:
City Hall and the Plaza serve as a magnet for sports fans after major victories (Photo: Henry Wood)
Architect Michael McKinnell, one of the original designers of Boston City Hall (Photo: Claudine Ebeid)
View of City Hall from near Faneuil Hall (Photo: Peter Vanderwarker)
Hardhat worn by Mayor John Collinsduring the construction of City Hall (Photo: Claudine Ebeid)
Boston City Hall isn’t the state’s only example of Brutalist architecture. A few examples:
Click on any image above to enlarge. From Left to Right:
Stratton Student Union, MIT, Cambridge, MA. (Architect: Eduardo Catalano)
Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard, Cambridge, MA. (Architect: Le Corbusierand Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente).
Boston University Law Tower, Boston University, Boston, MA.
And, the building that started it all: Le Corbusier’sclassic: The Monestary of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, Eveux-sur-l’Arbresle, France. Click image to enlarge.
There are more great images of Brutalism in Boston at our Flickr site.
Take a look, and add your own.
Now that the ground has thawed let’s go on an archaeological dig. What are some of the latest big local discoveries? What do historical artifacts teach us about our past?
Problems with City Hall:
- Brutalist Architecture think fails as public architecture. It is elitist. An architect’s statement of “I know better than you” and big reason why Modern Architecture never really caught on with the public.
- City Hall’s looming, heavy, and overpowering facade shuns rather than invites the public. What should be light and open closed and full of shadow. The interior would be dark and forbidding even if it was well lit. Concrete is a hard,cold material. These interior spaces can only be saved with a dramatic opening up to natural light which would require renovation almost as drastic as the wrecking ball.
- As to City Hall’s accessibility; if you live in Back Bay or along the Red Line it sure is easy to get to, but just try and find a place to park within walking distance. Go there to pay a parking ticket and your likely to get another.
Green Collar Economy Perfect for Rebuilding Boston
Today the show focused on the antiquated cement block that is Boston City Hall. David Boeri and guests were very passionate about pointing out reasons it is not suitable for a 21st century community. The only way to fix it is to either (a) demolish and rebuild or (b) renovate the inside, leave the shell and improve the surrounding area. Either way the theme for Radio Boston this week was “get your hard hats ready”.
But I thought we were done with construction since the Big Dig announced it was finished. We should be celebrating more funds in our budget now that the new Convention Center is built and the Big Dig is done but instead we have to fix the things that are out of date because we over looked them for so long.
But this construction will begin in a more eco conscious era. While we residents are always proud of our colonial heritage, even though it means a quirky street system and old buildings, we have actually placed ourselves in the perfect place to take advantage of the green construction movement.
Technology and knowledge is what Boston is known for today and we must work that into rebuilding the center of our city. Builders (and politicians) are hesitant, though, probably because the short term return on investment is low, but then again shortsighted architects built this beast so we have to learn from history.
Look long term. Not only will the new city hall be more productive after renovation but it may actually bring us closer to sustainability.
The best thing that couple come from the failed architecture design would be to recycle the cement after demolishing the building. The recycled material could then be used for filling the countless potholes in this State’s roads. Let’s have a belended new design that celebrates the warm red brick theme of Boston’s traditional past and welcoming new themes from our local talented and proud Architects.
How much of the hostility to City Hall stems from the fact that people associate it with parking tickets, tax abatements, fines, and tedious hearings? The building has become an easy target for displaced anger about how local government works (or doesn’t).
The building interior doesn’t function well, but the vast majority of problems (uncomfortable temperatures, dim lighting, confusing layout) arise from chronic penny pinching. Deferring maintenance, revising signage by printing shoddy new signs on a computer (!!), and jury-rigging a hideous security checkpoint at the entrance are the real villains.
In fact, much of the anger directed at the building really ought to target the slapdash ways the building has been patched up. On-the-cheap repairs say that someone thinks the public–this is, after all, our collective seat of government–isn’t worth anything more than a roll of masking tape or a bare lightbulb from CVS. This contempt for the public, in physical form, represents bad decisions by unconcerned people, not the sins of the building’s design.
All that said, we should renovate City Hall in place because:
1. It sits in a great, accessible central location (kmhadley: quit belly-aching about tickets and learn how to get around the city by subway or on foot).
2. It’s a historic building every bit as important to the story of its era as Bulfinch’s State House was to post-Revolutionary Boston.
3. Preservation/renovation would represent titanic energy and environmental savings over demolition + new construction.
Solving the building’s problems, as many of the guests on the show pointed out, boils down to completely reworking the plaza to give it life, activity, and more greenery; renovating the interior to address the problems noted above; applying some of the design smarts and green-tech knowledge that Boston has in spades to make this a standout example of sustainability.
Jim from Winthrop, MA sent this email:
The proposed demolition of City Hall just another example of our collective short cultural attention span. Rather than embrace and educate the public about what the design of the City Hall stands for, we choose to let it rot and then propose to throw it out. I still have my albums and the latest IPOD. I wouldn’t want to trade either.
While we are busy knocking down City Hall, may I make the following recommendations for demolition:
The Prudential Tower–what’s with the blue glass and the 5-story platform–it’s so 50’s.
The new ICA–do I have to have a boat to see the architecture because the view from the rear is really lousy. And did they forget the gallery space–just the 4th floor?
Old City Hall–let’s knock it down because it will only create confusion if we knock down new city hall.
Paul Rudolph’s Hurley Building on Cambridge Street. I mean they didn’t even put the tower in the middle as Rudolph designed it. And as far as the sweeping, magnanimous staircase that leaves to the building from Merrimac Street, who needs all the stairs?
Trinity Church–It’s so dark in there and I can never figure out how to get in. All those big heavy doors. And couldn’t we use that big plaza for something better?
The Custom House–It’s not even a custom house anyway and that awkward tower was an addition-what a mishmash.
Do we really need to still maintain the USS Constitution? What, are we going to send that ship to Iran? I can’t even stand up below decks. And every year, we have to turn it around. What a waste of public money.
Richard from East Fenway sent this email:
City Hall—Ugly, But Easy to Reach
Mayor Thomas M, Menino is still at it. He continues to push his plan for the relocation of City Hall to the South Boston waterfront. The mayor first announced his idea in December, 2006 with his eye on a 14 acre city-owned plot that runs along Northern Avenue. Mr. Menino continued his campaign in a March 2 speech to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.
The event was covered in the Boston Globe the next day. The mayor was quoted as saying that he wants to work with the MBTA to ” better integrate the Silver Line into the subway system so that residents could more easily use public transportation to get to the waterfront”.
What irony! Historically Mayor Menino has never been big on weaving a more integral transit network in Boston. He has spoken against the restoration of the Arborway trolley which would allow for a single-seat ride from Forest Hills to the central Green Line subway. He has not been an advocate for connecting the Red and Blue Line subways so that airport-bound riders can reduce the number of changes they have to make in the downtown transit system.
Mr. Menino has never been at the point of the important campaign to drill a rail tunnel connecting North and South Stations. The linking of the two terminals would allow un-interrupted north/south train movement.
While it is admirable that the mayor is expressing some concern on transit usage regarding his city hall vision, the fragmented Silver Line offers no solutions. Mr. Menino should join forces with those far-sighted community activists who have long fought to have the Silver Line properly developed as a light rail extension of the Green Line.
The mayor could also use some tutoring on local geography. In developmental and geographic terms, the expansion of downtown into South Boston makes sense. Why Menino thinks there is logic in also moving the seat of city government to the waterfront is an Agatha Christie vintage mystery. The current location of city hall, Government Center, was named as such by Boston’s 1960’s era movers and shakers because it was created to be the central concentration of city, state and federal administration.
Menino seems to be lost on the area’s well designed accessibility via mass transit. Government Center is accessible on the south side by the Green and Blue Lines, and on the north side by the Orange Line. The Red Line is two blocks south on Tremont St. Anyone with the need to conduct business with any one or all three levels of government can do so efficiently as the institutions are currently situated.
Displeasure over City Hall’s architecture is also a factor in the Mayor’s plan. Complaints over the building’s design have been constant since its 1968 completion–the American Institute of Architecture’s 1969 Honor Award not withstanding. In their 1994 book of photographs, Cityscapes of Boston, Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker stated, “The jewel of the new Government Center was to be a City Hall”.
Love it or hate it, give it an artistic thumbs up or down, change the façade, expand it or paint it green, leave City Hall where it is. The Mayor should not make his office geographically harder to reach.
Keith from Attleborough emailed this comment:
I love the building, but I am not the average person. You see, I attended UMass Dartmouth which was designed by the same architect. After four years living on campus and maneuvering the buildings, the architecture and subtle beauty eventually endeared itself to me. Looking at Boston City Hall reminds me of those good days.
This email came in during the show:
The building is somewhat irrelevant.
The entire plaza is the problem.
City Hall plaza should be torn down and the original street pattern and Adam’s Square, Scollay Square restored.
Boston lost it’s vibrant hub when Brattle St., Cornhill, etc.
The city is like a doughnut with a big dead plaza in the middle.
Mark,
Cambridge
Michelle from Somerville adds:
I just wanted to chime in and say I worked in City Hall and had a fabulous office on the 9th floor. I had an interior office with a window — meaning folks in the hallway could see me working and I always felt connected to both my colleagues and our constituents… Architecture grows and changes (as do elected and appointed officials)…city hall is great… (I do also remember being in an elevator with a group of “new bostonians” during an open house and they said “this building is like a prison! you work here!”)
Kelley sent us this email about city hall:
im a pittsburgh native who lived in boston several year ago & while i was there every day i went to work i got off at government center and saw city hall. its so unique - the levels and layers to the design - its gorgeous, rigid structure is fantastic. and while its hugely different from the surrounding architecture i can not imagine it not being there. its unique and thoughtful and brings a modern slant to what is a grossly traditional city. i understand that the building itself needs repairs and that it is not ideal in terms of layout or efficiency but it is a landmark nevertheless. there is no way that you could simply tear down a building and or criticize the building/the architects for something that hasn’t been properly
updated or maintained. there is NO WAY you can say you can afford to tear down and build from scratch but cant afford than take care of such a distinguished and well known part of boston.
Edward from Milton, MA sent Radio Boston this email:
I’m trying to save the planet, one plastic water bottle and plastic shopping bag (the use of which I have given up), and these people have the gall to propose “throwing away” that building? If Menino believes that the parcel is worth $500 million to a developer that will bulldoze the building, doesn’t that mean it’s likely worth keeping and having the city re-develop the building and plaza? Also, I’d be hesitant to give him a new building, given how poorly he’s taken care of the one he has.
Brian wrote in with these three points:
1) Those who wish to trash City Hall, hauling it to landfill, with all the use (and waste) of materials that implies, at a time when all levels of our society try to reduce our carbon ‘foot print’, are stuck in a 20th century mindset and not looking to the challenges of the future.
2) Destroying city hall would merely repeat the mistakes of the past: The Victorians almost completely destroyed colonial and Federal Boston, which was insufficiently grand for them; In the 1920’s most people hated Victorian architecture for the same reasons people hate City Hall – it’s dark, oppressive, cold. We lost our greatest Victorian monuments thanks to that attitude.
3) City Hall and it’s plaza needs an exciting, creative renovation that would play to its architectonic strengths and yet make it inviting and attractive to the public
I like the City Hall just as it is, dealing with the government is brutal, so why shouldn’t the building reflect that?
Ferris wheel with views of the harbor
As far as the plaza goes, my idea would to have a sports theme park on the plaza
1) Bmx bicycle park,
2) Skateboarder park,
3) Dog park,
4) Rock climbing practice walls,
5) Childrens jungle gym,
And the following private venture money makers to help pay for the renovation:
6) Outdoor ice skating rink
7) Miniature golf course with a historical theme (miniature freedom trail)
9) Indoor Carousel (even Pawtucket, Rhode Island has one of these) And of course, as Mayor Menino envisioned at the 2007 AltWheels awards ceremony:
10) A WORKING WINDMILL TO POWER CITY HALL!
(It would of course have to be a vertical blade type)