Boston Properties Office Tower | 888 Boylston Street | Back Bay

[stick n move]

Say there is a piece of art that starts as a blank canvas and slowly over time each generation slowly organically adds to it with the greatest ideas of the time period. Then 1950 comes and someone erases a few of the best parts of the painting. The next generation slowly realizes this mistake and starts to finally undo the damage. Just as this piece of art is about to be restored to its full potential after many more decades of repairing it somebody comes along and spills a drink right onto a different corner of the painting that just happens to be one of the most important corners of the painting. Now this corner is ruined and though it will still be a great piece it will now always have this stain and wrinkled corner. That is 888 boylston.

 

[JSic]

I dont get the hate either. This is nowhere near as bad as some of what's already there (Pru apartments, Sheraton, etc).

 

[mdd]

Say there is a piece of art that starts as a blank canvas and slowly over time each generation slowly organically adds to it with the greatest ideas of the time period. Then 1950 comes and someone erases a few of the best parts of the painting. The next generation slowly realizes this mistake and starts to finally undo the damage. Just as this piece of art is about to be restored to its full potential after many more decades of repairing it somebody comes along and spills a drink right onto a different corner of the painting that just happens to be one of the most important corners of the painting. Now this corner is ruined and though it will still be a great piece it will now always have this stain and wrinkled corner. That is 888 boylston.

There was a blank, boring underused plaza here, what standard are you expecting this to live up to and surpass?

 

[Suffolk 83]

I like the street level on this so far but I mostly agree with the negativity about it's overall feel so far.

I'm usually pro height, but I would like this better if it was a landscraper just a floor or two higher than the Mandarin, it would have a much lower impact

 

[DZH22]

There was a blank, boring underused plaza here, what standard are you expecting this to live up to and surpass?

I believe the "art" refers to the organic structural buildup of Boston itself. Viewing the city as a whole, the plaza was invisible. This building is not.

Personally, I dislike the building's presence and location much more than I dislike the building itself. The plaza (and view from across the street) offered a wonderful vista of the Pru and 111, side by side. This awe-inspiring (for Boston) view has been replaced by a blob.

Between this building and 1 Dalton, the Pru is going to lose a lot of its luster in the skyline as some of its viewing corridors get blocked off.

 

[Suffolk 83]

I believe the "art" refers to the organic structural buildup of Boston itself. Viewing the city as a whole, the plaza was invisible. This building is not.

Personally, I dislike the building's presence and location much more than I dislike the building itself. The plaza (and view from across the street) offered a wonderful vista of the Pru and 111, side by side. This awe-inspiring (for Boston) view has been replaced by a blob.

Between this building and 1 Dalton, the Pru is going to lose a lot of its luster in the skyline as some of its viewing corridors get blocked off.

DZ, you sound like a NIMBY

 

[DZH22]

DZ, you sound like a NIMBY

I live in the suburbs. I'm just giving my take. Sometimes a public plaza is better than a building. The plaza could have been successful had they put in any sort of effort.

The Pru's presence is in the process of being marginalized. I don't even see how that's debatable, and I don't see how it's NIMBYish to state a fact.

I guess I just don't want Boston to become blob city, and replace all its best vistas with uninspiring schlock. I'm a BANDANA. (build absolutely nothing dreadful/disgusting anywhere near anything)

 

[mdd]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

 

[Beton Brut]

Personally, I dislike the building's presence and location much more than I dislike the building itself. The plaza (and view from across the street) offered a wonderful vista of the Pru and 111, side by side. This awe-inspiring (for Boston) view has been replaced by a blob.

I'd tend to agree with this sentiment. 888 Boylston is too generic and small to make a positive architectural impact, even if it squares off the streetwall.

I'm less concerned about 1 Dalton's effect on the Pru -- for many reasons, I think it's the most exciting building of this development cycle.

 

[odurandina]

by far...... it'll make the Pru look even better. But not 888 Boylston. That building diminishes everything.

I think when you add 30 Dalton, 1 Dalton and Copley Tower to the 1984 Copley Place towers, the Sheraton and Pru infill are vastly improved. similarly, the 4 TD Garden Towers + 1 Congress will help make Longfellow Place look almost passable.

btw, since i can't get enough of thinking out loud, i've often wondered if Longfellow Place or Harbor Towers could be made to be less offensive to people and God if that horrid concrete could be covered in like, navy blue, tuscan red or a pastel.

i love how these two colors used on the Birch Tower in Lauderdale together.....

http://www.cdri.net/wp-content/uploads/BirchTower1-30-15-1.jpg?w=564

http://i0.wp.com/www.chinasmack.com...rise-apartment-building-09.jpg?resize=600,399

http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/ride/cf02.jpg

http://www.highrises.com/uploads/fort-lauderdale-birch-tower_banner.jpg

 

[CSTH]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

Amen. Density and street activition are what matters most for the life of the city. The skyline impact isn't nothing, but it sure as hell isn't everything.

The 'painting' analogy is more telling than perhaps you intended - in my book the city is an complex dynamic ecosystem, and the point is to participate in it - its not an object to admire abstractly. (Not primarily at least - after all those who follow the pretty picture threads know i love me a good skyline as much as anyone does...)

What if we think of it this way - this was a patch of bare ground in an otherwise mature meadow (not useless, mind you, but not particularly vital either), and someone dropped a hot steaming turd on it (i don't think this is a turd, but you do, so anyway....). Even if the turd itself is a little unpleasant, it can do wonderfully productive things for the meadow as a whole....

 

[datadyne007]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

+1

Not everyone.

 

[DZH22]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

"If you don't like this building here then you must long for Houston" is a bigger gulf than the current one between Democrats and Republicans.

If you aren't demanding both street level interaction and aesthetic value, then you are selling this city short and indirectly contributing to these "let-down" developments.

 

[mdd]

Amen. Density and street activition are what matters most for the life of the city. The skyline impact isn't nothing, but it sure as hell isn't everything.

The 'painting' analogy is more telling than perhaps you intended - in my book the city is an complex dynamic ecosystem, and the point is to participate in it - its not an object to admire abstractly. (Not primarily at least - after all those who follow the pretty picture threads know i love me a good skyline as much as anyone does...)

What if we think of it this way - this was a patch of bare ground in an otherwise mature meadow (not useless, mind you, but not particularly vital either), and someone dropped a hot steaming turd on it (i don't think this is a turd, but you do, so anyway....). Even if the turd itself is a little unpleasant, it can do wonderfully productive things for the meadow as a whole....

Michael Sorkin has a great book '20 Minutes in Manhattan' which is relevant to what you're saying here.

http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Minutes-Manhattan-Michael-Sorkin/dp/1861894287

 

[KentXie]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

And people like you on this board that constantly forgets that having a good design and a good street level is not mutually exclusive. I agree with Suffolk in making it more in line with the Mandarin and making it include setbacks instead of a straight up box that just makes it incredibly squat. The Mandarin was done right, this was not. If you're going to build a box, either make it more rectangular going vertically or rectangular horizontally. The worst thing you can go with is to make it a cube.

 

[KentXie]

"If you don't like this building here then you must long for Houston" is a bigger gulf than the current one between Democrats and Republicans.

If you aren't demanding both street level interaction and aesthetic value, then you are selling this city short and indirectly contributing to these "let-down" developments.

+1. Unlike them, we hold development to a higher standard than a "well at least it has street activation."

 

[mdd]

And people like you on this board that constantly forgets that having a good design and a good street level is not mutually exclusive. I agree with Suffolk in making it more in line with the Mandarin and making it include setbacks instead of a straight up box that just makes it incredibly squat. The Mandarin was done right, this was not. If you're going to build a box, either make it more rectangular going vertically or rectangular horizontally. The worst thing you can go with is to make it a cube.

I'm not saying I don't appreciate the holistic design of a building at all, that would be ridiculous.

 

[davem]

The building's not bad, this was just a superior street interaction:

This is not to say both levels of the plaza, stairs, the side of the Hynes, and the food court didn't need a complete overhaul. They did. But some sort of winter garden on the upper level allowing all season access to the food court and new landscaping and programming on the lower plaza would have had a far greater positive impact on the streetscape than the building we have now.

Of course, you can't extract rent from a public plaza...

I agree that it's a blemish, and contributes to the marginalization of the Pru. And I say this as a daily user of that section of Boylston and the Pru since 2006.

 

[stick n move]

I feel like people on this board take the postcard "image" of the skyline as being more important than how a building interacts and helps develop the street-scape, which is arguably the most vital part of the city. Anywhere can have something pretty from 10 miles out, look at somewhere like Houston, tall, glassy buildings, cool; Garbage street level.

I have stated in this post multiple times that the street level interaction of this building is great and that it is what is important at the end of the day. That was not what was being discussed though. Im just saying you look around and see the millennium towers, one seaport squares, 121 seaports, etc... being built greatly adding to both elements in this city not just one or the other and then this comes along.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Late to the conversation but which building has "great street-level interaction"? The Prudential Tower???

If you mean 888 Boylston, how is it possible to tell since it's blocked off?