City Hall Discussion - Redevelopment - Preservation - Relocation

ZenZen said:
Designs that embrace the common man? What would that be? A brick building? A tame building that is afraid to stand tall (figuratively)?

I guarantee you that once City Hall is torn done, the same common man will be crying foul.
Click to expand...

Consider Toronto City Hall. Built two years or so later, Brutalist in style. Are there legions of people out looking for it to be torn down? No there aren't, probably because it does indeed stand tall, does draw the observer in, does symbolize a city on the rise. It isn't a bunker surrounded by giant brick walls with no visible means of entry, looming threateningly over one of the city's most famous landmarks.

Let's look at London's new city hall, is this tame?

I don't think we'll ever find anyone outside the architectural community lamenting Boston's city hall....
 
It's about time this thing goes down. All city hall is, is a large ugly eyesore with a windswept plaza. The building inside is just as confusing as it seems to have stairs that looks as though it looks like it's going no where.
 
Mayor Menino wants to sell City Hall
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - Updated: 01:38 PM EST


Mayor Thomas M. Menino today unveiled a blockbuster plan to sell Boston City Hall and build a new seat of municipal government on the fast-growing South Boston waterfront.

The sale of City Hall and the plaza in front of it could bring in as much as $300 million to $400 million. The roughly 10-acre former Scollay Square site close to Faneuil Hall has been eyed by developers for years.

City officials have already picked out a 13-plus acre site in the Marine Industrial Park, which is owned by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Boston?s new City Hall could be open for business in four to five years, city officials say.

Menino proposed a similar plan in the late 1990s, but withdrew it after finding insufficient interest in the real estate development market.
But the new proposal comes as Boston office vacancy rates begin to drop and rents rise, spurring demand for new office towers



Link
 
Get rid of the plaza ASAP, but not so quick on City Hall. I personally think that City Hall would look awesome rising out of dense urban development (of course assuming that the redevelopment of the plaza would be dense and urban, which isn't always a guarantee in Boston). The surroundings are what make City Hall despised by so many, dreary on dreary doesn't work. Dreary on full-of-life would be much better.

I was envisioning a small alley from Cambridge St. through the new development, leading to a much, much reduced and intimate plaza in front of CH, surrounded by commercial use. This would water down its forced dominance on anyone that walks by, another reason why it's disliked. As for the new function of CH? I like the idea of something architecture related. Maybe a National Museum of Architecture (there isn't one in DC, right?) or some sort of architectural hall of fame run by the BAC. Raze the plaza, and while we're at it, raze the low-rise JFK, GC garage, state service center, and Charles River Park :D . But with a little work on the building itself and the urban context around it, City Hall can be transformed from the eyesore it is today.

Also, narrow Congress St. to make the walk to Faneuil Hall less daunting. Maybe then a few buildings could go up on the Congress side of City Hall as well.
 
statler said:
Beton Brut said:
...it uses its principal material (concrete) with a sense of striving muscularity...
Click to expand...

This is probably my strongest criticism of the building. I just don't see that as a positive, especially for a government building. A bank or a corporate headquaters, sure but I like government buildings to be more open and permeable.
Click to expand...

Concrete circa 1960 served the same function as the stone-on-stone did circa 1260, or in the case of our beloved Custom House, 1830...

The benefit of concrete is plasticity and the ability to create curving or vaulted spaces, a route that KM&K completely avoided in their design...
 
Selling city hall and redeveloping that site is a good idea. Drydock 4 is an interesting choice. The city owns development rights, but the zoning is all wrong and there will be endless battles. Menino may have a clever ploy though. Once vivian li and the CLF emerge and nix the waterfront idea, he will be free to propose building on one of his friend's parcels at fan pier or the former Frank McCourt land without looking like he is giving special favors. No matter, one of the those parcels would be a better site for city hall anyway.
 
Jasonik said:
Click to expand...

Doesn't this picture clearly show the problem with this building? It's not the building. It's the plaza and specifically how the building and plaza transition to each other.

Try to picture this building within a new urban environment. Basically get rid of all the brick and reintroduce the street grid. From this angle you can almost see the new pedestrian mall through this building connecting Fanuel Hall to whatever gets developed on the plaza.
 
It is amazing when you look at cities all across the U.S. and how their city halls absolutely blow Boston's out of the water. These cities are not nearly as appealing as Boston (just my opinion) but in this area there is no comparison. Most of the really nice city halls I have seen were either built in the 1800's or early 1900's and make a statement about that particular city. The buildings are inspirational and instill pride among the residents while Boston's creates disgust. This is a golden opportunity to create something new and impressive and remedy the mistakes of the past. It does not necessarily mean the current building has to be razed but it could if there is no good plan for it especially with the re-creation of this area. I feel the design of the new city hall should not be a new architectural trend or else we'll be sitting here in another 30 years discussing what went wrong once again. The design should be timeless and something we'll be proud of for generations to come. A review of other cities and what they have done right could serve Boston well on this project and other future projects. We obviously could use the help based on a lot of the post-WWII architecture we have had. When people talk about Boston and how nice it is, they are usually referring to the historical charm of the city and not the Brutalist architecture of Gov't center and Charles river park. History is what sets us apart from other cities in the U.S. and is our greatest asset. It should be enhanced and not overwhelmed. This can include plenty of development and new ideas but ones that are well chosen and well placed in proper context with their surroundings. One thing I am skeptical about in this whole situation is the location of the new city hall. The location of the current building is central and I worry that on the South Boston waterfront this would be missed. Something iconic could definitely be built there but it may lack the personal feel it could have had at Gov't Center.
 
Lots of development is going on down on waterfront though. The addition of the new City Hall could possibly add prestige and desirability to the area. The location of the current city hall is probably the best you could want, but they said they plan on using the sale of the current city hall to fund the new one. I totally agree about your comments regarding the design. I think it would be interesting if someone could do some sort of basis on the old City Hall (the old one, not the one we have now).

It's interesting that city officials think the new city hall could open in 4 to 5 years...isn't that usually about how long it would take to build it? I guess this means they're really wanting to push this project into motion very quickly. It'd be nice to see a development in Boston actually move with some speed...this got me to thinking: there's a 1,000 foot tower proposed, and we're pushing to quickly develop a major project and destroy the largest exhibit of the 1960s brutalist architecture that plagues our fair city? Doesn't this sound kinda weird to anyone else? Haven't we spent a fair share of time crying about the eyesore that is City Hall plaza and bitch about the lack of height in our city? Could the development policy in Boston finally be changing?

This is a bit off topic, but I feel fortunate to be young while the Big Dig is finishing up. It's going to be amazing to see how Boston is going to look in 10 years when (hopefully) Winthrop Square, Gateway Center, South Station Tower, the New City Hall, the South Boston Waterfront, and whatever replaces the current City Hall are all built. I know it's very optimistic (and probably a little naive) to look forward to the time when these projects are all built, but until I hear otherwise, the glass is half full.
 
Where the discussion veers off into lamenting the 'common man''s lack of appreciation of supposedly great public architecture, I am reminded of a poem by Bertolt Brecht:

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
 
You people have no idea what architecture is if you want to destroy this building. So what if it's ugly, so what if it's uninviting, so what if it's the world's worst public space in all of the United States and it is the exact opposite of what a city hall should be. You people just think because it is all of those things it should be torn down? That shows how dangerous regular people are. It's an intensely complex composition, responsive to the constraints of site, context and program, and an imagery which conveys the openness and dignity of civic governance. How dare you suggest tearing down an architectural statement and a symbol of an outdated form of architecture just because it's dysfunctional and pulls down the city and its image. This is ARCHITECTURE, people! You and the rest of the unwashed masses need to understand that.

There is an underlying tripartite, classical order of a brick-clad base, a columnated middle level of concrete piers and the elements of government, and an attic of stepped tiers for the office floors above?The use of an inventive technology and the allusion to historic precedent in the siting as well as the compositional scheme of the building result in a density of image, which is both modern and timeless in nature. Can't you see how awesome that is? In a poll of historians and architects, sponsored by the AIA, Boston City Hall was voted the sixth greatest building in American history. Architects and historians say it's the sixth greatest building in history, and yet you want to tear it down just because it's ugly and useless and the space could be used for something better? You people make me sick.
 
^ I don't understand you and what you just wrote doesn't make sense.
 
I'm so forever torn with this building. One side of me appreciates the architectural style, but the other side thinks it is absolutely atrocious. I definitely like to see the city hall plaza developed before razing city hall, but if after the plaza is redeveloped and it still looks like ass, then tear that shit down.
 
But it's much easier to tear a building down when it has a huge empty space next to it.
 
This is a great, great idea. It would add vitality to the waterfront (something that is completely lacking) and make available the most expensive piece of real estate in the country (Manhattan included people)

This parcel is a gold mine. Forget about Winthrop Square, this should be called Platinumacre.
 
I wonder if that hideous low-rise building that is next to City Hall will also be knocked down...
 
"Greater Boston" (WGBH ch. 2) ran a great piece on the topic tonight, and for guests she had on Tom O'Brien, former director of the BRA, Vivian Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association, and our pal Scott Van Vorhees from the Boston Herald. Let me say that Scott looks like a 30 year old dork. Anyway, here was the main points made by everyone:

Tom O'Brien
- It's a win-win for Boston to have a new high tech City Hall built plus have 10 acres of prime space opened up for development.
- Mayor Menino has done this before, his example being Menino's decision to build the new convention center in South Boston.
- the current City Hall is horrible to work in - dark, cold, inefficient and the floor plans don't promote interaction between individiual agencies.
- the opportunity to recreate connections between areas, for instance between the green line entry and Fanieul Hall or from the plaza to Hanover Street, comes along once every generation or two.

Vivian Li
- Tom Menino is a 21st Century booster for the city of Boston, between his calls for a new 1,000 ft tower and a new city hall
- Concerns over the site included that it's a fairly tight site space-wise, and that because it's zoned for maritime-industrial it will have to overcome certain regulatory hurdles to be built.
- but she countered with if they were to make the dry dock into some sort of terminal for ferries it would help the project through the approval procedures for zoning along with public benefit reasons, along with complementing the Silver Line, which will obviously need some reviewing/upgrading if City Hall were to be moved to that area.

and Scott Van Vorhees
- supposedly wrote a column a month ago proposing the idea of selling off City Hall and the Plaza. (can anyone verify this?)
- he made the point that the mayor is basically saying "go for it" to developers - the office market is strong, Menino is pushing for an image-changing tower, and he wants to sell off 10 acres of prime real estate -- it's time for the developers to step in and make some 21st century magic happen.


And one last point that was made -- a lot of things that used to go on at city hall (e.g. payment of parking tickets) now can and is being done online, and the people on the show spoke of the hypothetical new City Hall being an emblem of what the 21st century city hall should be -- among other things, not taking up 10 acres of space for many fuctions that are now done by computer..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top