That hotel is one of the great architectural mysteries in Greater Boston. Who the hell designed it?
I agree that its Beacon Street facade is absolutely deadening, but I still find it...interesting? There are architectural gestures that call to mind three disparate Frank Lloyd Wright buildings:
(Perhaps you'll see what I see, perhaps you'll think I've been huffing paint.)
I'll confess to having the same complicated relationship with the often-reviled
Midtown Hotel. From an urbanistic standpoint, I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. Architecturally, removed from its context, it's an interesting example of Midcentury Modernism. The white masonry and flat roofs remind me of Edward Durell Stone masterful
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, recently restored and expanded by HOK (2008
ArchRecord story
here).