Academic Building @ Suffolk U | 20 Somerset Street | Beacon Hill

Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Padre Mike said:
How on earth did that mess get built so close to the crest of Beacon Hill?
Click to expand...

Federal buildings.

My guess is the city was either powerless to stop them, or they rolled over and let them do anything.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

BostonUrbEx said:
Federal buildings.

My guess is the city was either powerless to stop them, or they rolled over and let them do anything.
Click to expand...

One Ashburton and the Saltonstall are both state buildings rather than federal. Both are ugly enough to come from the feds, though.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Part of Boston's "Brave New World" or "Great Leap Forward" or whatever it was called. I don't remember anymore.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

What was torn down to build the state office buildings?
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

stellarfun said:
Suffolk%20Classroom%20Building.jpg


$62 million classroom building for 20 Somerset.

From behind the Globe paywall.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...6EbIw0NhCNHWbfBFJ/story.html?p1=Well_BG_Links
Click to expand...

Say, the "brick" in this rendering looks suspiciously similar to the precast panels on the Victor and Millennium III.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Ron Newman said:
What was torn down to build the state office buildings?
Click to expand...

I am too lazy to find and post photos. My recollection is that it was a mix of row houses like those on the other side of Bowdoin St, late 19th c. commercial buildings near the top, and the spillover from Pemberton Sq. Bostonian Society has some views I think.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Ashburton Place, 1961
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/000232.jpg

Upper Bowdoin St 1960
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/000231.jpg

Allston St 1964 (for reference, see the highrise "New Old Courthouse" in Pemberton Sq. in the background)
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/001094.jpg

11 Ashburton Place
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/001541.jpg

Demo of the Church of New Jerusalem, Bowdoin St. 1963
http://rfi.bostonhistory.org/boston/full/967-0935.jpg
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Thank you Toby...it was a much more civilized place...
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Thanks Padre. So strange to see the neighborhood in ancient looking b/w photos that might as well be pictures from the 1860's... so strange when that car might have been your family Oldsmobile (it wasn't, but it could have been.)
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Thanks for the links to those pics, very interesting for me as it's right around the corner from where I work. It's a shame we lost that corner of the city for the saltonstall and ashburton place buildings.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Too painful to know what had come before.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Ouch. Those pictures are brutal.

The saddest thing is that we (invoking the absolutely non-royal "we" to mean Thomas Menino) continue to make these obviously terrible decisions, leveling beautiful historic structures at Dainty Dot, 1 Bromfield (potentially), the Arlington Building (potentially), and the MDC building here to put up plastic-and-alucobond street-killing trash that we all know look like crap today and will look like crap in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 years.

Modernism = masochism?
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

FYI BU folks. The photo of 11 Ashburton Place shows a very severe Greek Revival building. This former church building was the (first?)site of the BU Law School. For orientation purposes, at the end of the street you can see the back side of the old Suffolk County Courthouse which fronts on Pemberton Square. This is the only building in the picture that remains today.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I'm noticing more activity on this site. Scaffolding contractors are reinstalling much of what was removed over the winter and folks with Suffolk Construction hard hats (not Suffolk U.) have been spotted in recent days. I wonder if the demo is imminent.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Well, I haven't been there since May, but... honestly, there's been activity every day for a long time, and seemingly nothing changes. The school is still in danger of going up to its eyeballs in debt. I'm not sure they'd make a move until they can sort out a deal to sell of the buildings on Derne St and Temple St.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

That's unfortunate. The existing building (the old MDC HQ) is a fairly nice masonry pre-war. The proposed building is, IMO, one of the most hideous examples of "contemporary random pastiche architecture" I've seen, anywhere.

Was / am hoping this one will die on the vine.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I'd like it a lot more if they did away with the misaligned windows motif.

It was cute for about ten minutes in 2004.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I agree that this project has some shortcomings; however it is an improvement considering that it is in a rather homely bubble of Beacon Hill. Also I'm sure it will liven up an area that is pretty much dead unless the legislature is in session.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I agree it's an ugly part of Beacon Hill, but I think this building will only exacerbate that. The only reason this block is so hideous is that it is dominated by 2 hideous modernist/post-war buildings (the McCormack and the Saltsonstall), plus a few cheap-looking PoMo low-rises meant to undo some of the injury from those 2 beasts.

Against that backdrop, the MDC building is a fairly decent-looking building that fits into "classic" Beacon Hill more or less smoothly.

Adding another nasty-looking mistake of modernist architecture (which is what the Suffolk building is) will only worsen this part of Beacon Hill. Between the Dainty Dot and this, the city doesn't seem to understand what is and isn't good for it.
 
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