Bulfinch Crossing | Congress Street Garage | West End

Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I think the Cook & Fox design is the best....the Foster design is pretty cool, but the smaller tower is a chode. The Gensler design is really nice...it's smooth and elegant.

The other two are throwaway pieces of garbage. I'm going to reserve final judgement on the renderings until we get some higher quality pics (very grateful for these ones by the way), and get to see some other angles and models, etc.

If we got the Cook & Fox, Foster or Gensler design, I'd be very happy.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

bostonnative said:
I think I'm the only one who actually likes the Aquarium garage. I don't know what it is, but something about it fits with the greenway and surrounding buildings. I can't put my finger on it, but there's a sensation when seeing it. I can't describe it, but I like it.
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I suppose there are few, but no, you are not the only one. I feel exactly the same way that you do. I simply love that garage, and it makes my day every morning when I see it. The fact that any garage could serve such function and look so elegant is a huge accomplishment. Unless there is some iconic 900ft building taking it's place, I wouldn't want to see it go.

Bubbybu said:
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Exchange Place has to be the most underappreciated building in Boston....for being over 20 years old it has aged amazingly well
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I can't agree more with this statment. I just had to write to it.

Regarding the 1 Congress designs, I am far too late to come to the table so I'll make it simple and echo tmac9wr's comment "If we got the Cook & Fox, Foster or Gensler design, I'd be very happy." I think the Cook & Fox desing is exactly what this city needs. If I owned the garage, I would threaten the community that I would never tear it down if any NIMBYs stood in my way (and fortunately, that is a very like scenario). The Foster and Gensler designs have their obvious advantages and I would be happy enough to have either of those to the point that it makes me less angry about losing the 7 floors off of 1 Franklin. But words can't even describe how happy I would be if the Cook & Fox design was chosen.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I'm not sure if this has been posted already

The developer said at the meeting that he might pick more than one architect

They want feed back and the best way is the web site email
http://demolishthegarage.com/contact.htm
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

Exchange Place is the reason why Druker should have prayed SCL got historic status.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

What it did to the lovely old State Street building was grotesque. They could have done without the stupid vanity lobby and minimized the wounds.
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Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

Considering the original plan was to pull a 75 State Street on Exchange Place, be glad it turned out the way it did. I swear Maurice Gordon earned himself an even deeper place in hell for what happened to 83 and paved the way for 75 State Street to happen.

I sincerely hope SOM's & Koolhaus' designs, or a bastard combination of the two, aren't considered. Cook & Fox, Foster or Gensler the design, more or less on various levels, all have significantly more merit.

Although we haven't heard from the "OH NO S-S-SHADOWS!" lobby yet; so one wonders what two story Whole Foods, a few cell phone shops, several banks, drive-thru Dunkin's with 2x parking spaces per 500sf, and at least 45% open space, will be requested.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

^ It's chopped up in chunks, like Chinese food; and the chunks are rectangles. This place needs rectangles.

Normally, I don't like Koolhaas, but this scheme --for him-- is commendably restrained. Maybe the details will display his customary weirdness; Boston could use some of that, but not at a large scale.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I like the first of the two Koolhaas renderings because of the bouillon cubes. I bet it would look really interesting viewed at an angle from the "greenway". It shows a real sense of humour.

That second rendering, the view from Government Center is a bit cold, though. Until I saw that view, I didn't realize how dominating this project will be. I'd like to see all of the proposals from that angle and from Congress Street at about the crossing behind City Hall.

Liked Fox and Gensler for their "standoff" presence. Wish Gensler could take the Koolhass base/streetlevel and put it under a heatgun, melt it up a bit. In fact, put the whole thing under a heat gun and get it all melty or lava lamp-like.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

OMA's design is ok for an expanding goverment area

Government center is a government area but one that is in the process of being constricted and enclosed....thankfully

OMA's proposal would expand upon a government zone

which is not what anyone is looking for at this time

plus the smaller buildings look horrible
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

Although the smaller building might look a little awkward, I think the Koolhaas design (especially the two towers) is the most striking and modern design, followed by Gensler (the Cook and Fox design is too blurry to tell, but it looks interesting). Foster is a nice design and would be a great addition, but in my opinion it doesn't pack as much a punch and would have as lasting an impact as the others. I think if Koolhaas switched up his pattern a bit for the smallest building, a lot of people would be having a completely different reaction.

It's kind of hard to really form an opinion on the SOM design; it looks like a chipboard model and doesn't stand a chance against the 3D renderings. You can't even tell what the materials are really.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I wouldn?t mind OMA?s design on Fan Pier or Seaport Square but not there on Congress Street. Just way too busy of a design imo. And too contrasting.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

ablarc said:
^ It's chopped up in chunks, like Chinese food; and the chunks are rectangles. This place needs rectangles.

Normally, I don't like Koolhaas, but this scheme --for him-- is commendably restrained. Maybe the details will display his customary weirdness; Boston could use some of that, but not at a large scale.
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Congratulations, ablarc! You got me to go back and look at the OMA/Koolhaas scheme again. I agree that there are some interesting ideas in it (he's an idea guy, really, more than a craftsman like Piano), but the feel is not humane. It's cold, like a piece of the Borg cube. The details, materials, and grammar will make or break this design, and I didn't see any specifics in the presentation materials.

PaulC said:
I'm not sure if this has been posted already

The developer said at the meeting that he might pick more than one architect

They want feed back and the best way is the web site email
http://demolishthegarage.com/contact.htm
Click to expand...

I did make passing mention of this here. I chose to leave it out of my initial post because I wanted pure reactions to the five schemes as is.

So what do people think? Could any of these be combined in a way that would work urbanistically, and as a "complete" design?
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I still don't know what people see in Coolhaas's [sic] ice cubes design. You say its striking and modern but I see in no way it is striking. Yes maybe it is modern but it is bland.

I guess it's just a difference of opinions.
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

Beton, was the shorter of the Foster towers fat all around? Or was it thinner when viewed from other angles?

Are there any other meetings soon that will show the models again?
 
Re: Congress St Garage is being sold.

I would love to see some visuals. Does anyone have handouts from the meetings they can post?
 
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