City Hall Discussion - Redevelopment - Preservation - Relocation

I go to the food trucks there for lunch sometimes. And since they created the "front lawn" area on that side with the Adirondack chairs and picnic tables, it's actually not bad!
 
cden4 said:
I go to the food trucks there for lunch sometimes. And since they created the "front lawn" area on that side with the Adirondack chairs and picnic tables, it's actually not bad!
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We were talking about inside the building, the lobby area, not out on the plaza. Lots of people use the plaza area, even if it is a bit windswept.
 
Oooooh, my bad. If there was a really special coffee shop inside and cool places to sit, perhaps.
 
cca said:
That statement is at best cruel. The designers competed for that building and many many people chose them, guided them, and worked with them. Because the experiment of brutalism never connected with the general pubic does not mean that brilliant people should be ashamed of their work.

If a building makes you as bitter as you sound, I would suggest therapy. I guarantee that Bruce and Michael (the designers by the way) did not need any therapy while they were alive. They remained proud and rightfully so.

cca
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That's not cruel at all. Architects are not artists. Nearly all terrible and inhuman architecture comes from i) ideological principles, ii) a view that the architect is only crafting a painting, or some combination thereof. Bad, dysfunctional architecture, designed to glorify the architect and not the humans who use and inhabit it should not be celebrated. The feelings of the designers are exactly what we should not care about.

If you don't trust me, this is essentially Stewart Brand's argument in "How Buildings Learn"
 
JeffDowntown said:
In what parallel universe would people willingly go to City Hall to just hang out in the public space? People go to City Hall to conduct business with the City.
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It is a total waste of that space to have paper records at ground level. The transactions can happen in a fraction of the ground level space and should be distributed to neighborhood offices for better service. Smaller meetings can happen in the upper floors and there is plenty of room upstairs to move city staff up.

We are talking about gutting the lower levels and making it public welcoming space. Not just a coffee shop. A space as vibrant as Quincy Market.
 
tangent said:
It is a total waste of that space to have paper records at ground level. The transactions can happen in a fraction of the ground level space and should be distributed to neighborhood offices for better service. Smaller meetings can happen in the upper floors and there is plenty of room upstairs to move city staff up.

We are talking about gutting the lower levels and making it public welcoming space. Not just a coffee shop. A space as vibrant as Quincy Market.
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OK, but define ground level. Isn't the plaza entry on floor 3 (I forget). Congress Street is way below. Are you going to take out 3-4 floors for public space? Also, I think levels 1 and 2 will be really hard to get away from a subterranean feel -- they are buried on three sides (probably why they are used for records -- it feels like a basement).

(Maybe worth it, but I have a hard time seeing the City buying that.)
 
JeffDowntown said:
OK, but define ground level. Isn't the plaza entry on floor 3 (I forget). Congress Street is way below. Are you going to take out 3-4 floors for public space? Also, I think levels 1 and 2 will be really hard to get away from a subterranean feel -- they are buried on three sides (probably why they are used for records -- it feels like a basement).

(Maybe worth it, but I have a hard time seeing the City buying that.)
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Yes, take out most of the brick walls on Congress St and put in a glass and open up the interior to natural light and it won't feel like a basement at all.


No, taxpayers aren't going to want to pay for much of anything so it would have to be leased commercial/retail/restaurant to make it happen. That would basically be the assessing department area. 1st level further in would be harder to make feel less like a basement, but with Congress St side opened up it might work.

part of the second and third levels could be the Boston Museum and/or garden under glass... I believe combined they had gotten pledges for tens of millions before going defunct for not getting enough for the parcels on the greenway.

Museum with public space is tougher to see the funding for... guessing $100 million at least for something relatively modest.
 
curcuas said:
That's not cruel at all. Architects are not artists. Nearly all terrible and inhuman architecture comes from i) ideological principles, ii) a view that the architect is only crafting a painting, or some combination thereof. Bad, dysfunctional architecture, designed to glorify the architect and not the humans who use and inhabit it should not be celebrated. The feelings of the designers are exactly what we should not care about.

If you don't trust me, this is essentially Stewart Brand's argument in "How Buildings Learn"
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You shouldn't celebrate it, but purposely trying to inflict psychological harm on the architects who designed them is definitely cruel.
 
curcuas said:
That's not cruel at all. Architects are not artists. Nearly all terrible and inhuman architecture comes from i) ideological principles, ii) a view that the architect is only crafting a painting, or some combination thereof. Bad, dysfunctional architecture, designed to glorify the architect and not the humans who use and inhabit it should not be celebrated. The feelings of the designers are exactly what we should not care about.

If you don't trust me, this is essentially Stewart Brand's argument in "How Buildings Learn"
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You might not have met, or understood what 99.99% of architects do with their lives. I guarantee that being artists is the farthest from what they do on a day to day basis.

Also ... if you think that any designer gets to sit in a room and choose what happens to a site, city, building, or bathroom in total isolation from the clients needs and desires than you again have not met many.

You can say what you want ... but what you said was an unfair blanket statement.

I will drop this topic from now on. If you want to continue to discussing this I am more than happy to continue in a Private Message.

cca

Ps I dont trust you, and Stewart Brand also seems pretty disconnected.
 
Hubman said:
You shouldn't celebrate it, but purposely trying to inflict psychological harm on the architects who designed them is definitely cruel.
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Fair. I went too far there.

I think, though, that many of us in our professional lives screw up from time to time and live to see what happened and learn. It would be bad for us not to observe our failures and see them corrected. Certain pieces of bad and dysfunctional architecture, like City Hall, have their mistakes glorified, as if the opinions of the original designer are something we the citizens should care about. That attitude, I do not appreciate. Needless psychological abuse is not warranted.
 
City Hall wouldn't be so horrible if it were hemmed in by a proper street grid and surrounded by dense development. Here's my concept; yellow are new buildings, grey are streets and green is a pocket park at the GC station headhouse. With the Congress Street side of City Hall opened up at street level for retail, it might fit in pretty well to a restored dense neighborhood.


35148460865_c0048ee4ec_o.jpg
 
Charlie - love it..

...what would it look like if you expanded the frame up to the courthouse, and got rid of / selectively edited center plaza?
 
Charlie_mta said:
City Hall wouldn't be so horrible if it were hemmed in by a proper street grid and surrounded by dense development. Here's my concept; yellow are new buildings, grey are streets and green is a pocket park at the GC station headhouse. With the Congress Street side of City Hall opened up at street level for retail, it might fit in pretty well to a restored dense neighborhood.


35148460865_c0048ee4ec_o.jpg
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I'd rather see the plaza surrounded by retail and mixed use than consumed by it.
 
tangent said:
I'd rather see the plaza surrounded by retail and mixed use than consumed by it.
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I like the idea of a small rectangular mall (i don't mean retail mall...i mean traditional definition of mall) leading up to the main civic entrance of city hall. This would frame/establishes it as a civic gateway. Meanwhile said mall can be lined with retail to thus fill in a large chunk of the current barren plaza.
 
bigpicture7 said:
I like the idea of a small rectangular mall (i don't mean retail mall...i mean traditional definition of mall) leading up to the main civic entrance of city hall. This would frame/establishes it as a civic gateway. Meanwhile said mall can be lined with retail to thus fill in a large chunk of the current barren plaza.
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Likewise - I'd love to see that mall / plaza span cambridge st and incorporate the ghost of pemberton sq. (in a post-center plaza world) so that city hall & the old (fancy) courthouse would face / engage eachother across the square ... with similar size shape & height but very very different styles ...
 
^^yes!!

Charlie,

love it. must adds:

Center Plaza, Suffolk Court tower and State Services Building!
 
Wall in city hall with towers so no one has to see it.
 
odurandina said:
^^yes!!

Charlie,

love it. must adds:

Center Plaza, Suffolk Court tower and State Services Building!
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Exactly. Tear down, rebuild, repeat on 1-2-3 Center Plaza, the Federal Building, and State Service Center.

Restore a tight urban street grid with a mix of supertalls, medium rise and low rise buildings; actually a dense and lively urban core. Oh, and by the way, continue this westward into the Charles River Park complex.
 
I love it ... like ecosystem succession in a clear-cut forest....
 
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