Re: Millennium Tower - Filene's
I'd say we really have more iconic "views" more so than iconic individual towers. As stand-alone buildings, I argue that Boston really only has 2 iconic towers. The Hancock and The Custom House. The rest are just part of clusters surrounding those two buildings.
-We have an iconic cluster of buildings of the Back Bay, led by the Hancock. That cluster includes, as mentioned above, the old HC tower, R2 and the Pru.
-The second iconic view is from the harbor, which includes, also mentioned above, the Custom House Tower, Boston Harbor Hotel, and IP.
Those two views define Boston for outsiders.
And Florence only has 3 iconic tall structures [aka towers] the rest are iconic views?: [by age details courtesy of Wikipedia]
1) Palazzo Vecchio (first phase) 1299–1314 Arnolfo di Cambio
2) Giotto's Belltower 1334–1357 Giotto, Francesco Talenti, Andrea Pisano and others
3) Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore 1418–1434 Filippo Brunelleschi
Paris has 3?:
1) Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris
2) Tour D' eifel
3) Montremarte
This is degenerative, revisionist deconstructionism at its worst
Boston in each of its ages has always had a dramatic skyline -- see the Fitz Henry Lane at the MFA Boston from the Harbor mid 19th Century [I've got the repro over my fireplace] -- it was churches from the 18th and early 19th Century:
Christ's aka Old North [175 feet steeple]; Old South Meeting House [183 feet steeple]; Park Street[ ]; + the State House Dome atop Beacon Hill and the Bunker Hill Monument [ ]
Later circa 1870 to 1900 we added several more iconic churches in the Back Bay:
New Old South [designed between 1870 and 1872 by the Boston architectural firm of Cummings and Sears in the Venetian Gothic style. built of Roxbury Conglomerate commonly called puddingstone, The style follows the precepts of the British cultural theorist and architectural critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) as outlined in his treatise The Stones of Venice. Old South Church in Boston remains one of the most significant examples of Ruskin's influence on American architecture. inspired by the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice, Italy.
A tall tower, or campanile is the trademark feature of Old South and is visible from several Boston neighborhoods. The tower, on the western end of the church, rises to a height of 246' [originally 260] and houses the church's 2020 pound bell. Centered above the Sanctuary on the east side of the church is a copper clad cupola surrounded by twelve ornate Gothic arched windows. This feature is reminiscent of the cupolas of the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice;
HH Richardson's clearly iconic masterpiece of Trinity Church Built 1872 - 1877 "James O'Gorman described Trinity as "a cultural event of the first importance in American history." The building both represents a departure of the Boston's mind from its Puritan past, and emergence of American creativity as a force in architecture";
Church of the Covenant [Built 1867, Designed by Richard M. Upjohn, 240-foot (73 m) high steeple]; H H Richardson's other great church first use of the style now known as Richardson Romanesque, built of Roxbury puddingstone, square tower 176 feet high. At the top of the tower (which a current guidebook describes as "one of the majestic forms on the Boston Skyline") is a frieze of sculpted figures representing baptism, communion, marriage and death. The frieze was designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, famous for the Statue of Liberty, and was carved by Italian artists after the stones were set in place. It includes the faces of Sumner, Longfellow, Emerson, Hawthorne, Lincoln, Lafarge, and his comrade Garibaldi, and other prominent Bostonians still being researched.
In the early 20th Century we got the Custom House Tower, the Ames House on Commonwealth in the Back Bay and the Ames Building on State Street -- the churches were still there
Art Deco -- the USM Building
Post WWII the height of the Custom House was matched by the iconic John Hancock with the Weather Beacon -- note no one tore down any of the other earlier icons
Later the previously mentioned towers a couple of others such as JFK + the LP Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge
