City Hall Plaza

type001 said:
Since we are going to lose the Rudolph building soon, it would be nice to have one Brutalist style building left remaining
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We are? What plans are there to do away with it?
 
^^The plans for Winthrop Sq call for it's demolition, I believe.
 
Oh, that Rudolph building; I thought he meant the corduroy concrete one.
 
ablarc said:
Oh, that Rudolph building; I thought he meant the corduroy concrete one.
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Ahhh, good old corduroy concrete. Reminds me of all the Caldors stores that popped up in the 70's. Which one is the corduroy concrete building that you are refering to? The Rudolph building (where I currently work) is coming down in September immediately following our departure. My company is that last company to vacate the building right before it gets torn down. In fact, over haf of the building is vacant now.
 
type001 said:
Ahhh, good old corduroy concrete... Which one is the corduroy concrete building that you are refering to?
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This one:

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type001 said:
Ahhh, good old corduroy concrete. Reminds me of all the Caldors stores that popped up in the 70's. Which one is the corduroy concrete building that you are refering to? The Rudolph building (where I currently work) is coming down in September immediately following our departure. My company is that last company to vacate the building right before it gets torn down. In fact, over haf of the building is vacant now.
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Are you in the Rudolph building on Federal Street? If so, that would suggest that the Winthrop Square project is more likely to happen than the odds I would have given it.
 
ablarc said:
This one:

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A good example of the textured concrete look can be found in none other than downtown Orlando (may be Orlando's best achievement architecturally):
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The architect was John Johanson--a structure both brutalist and urban, how rare!

I also like the old Borders bookstore in Downtown Crossing.
 
Borders was a building that needed a substantially different use before people began to like it. Originally it was a bank.
 
Ron Newman said:
Borders was a building that needed a substantially different use before people began to like it.
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Good point. Wouldn't it be swell if we could someday say the same thing about City Hall or the Hurley.
 
Also, even if Borders is brutalist, it also features lots and lots of glass. Which is perfect for a multi-story bookstore. That's very different from the two buildings you mention.
 
Ron Newman said:
Also, even if Borders is brutalist, it also features lots and lots of glass. Which is perfect for a multi-story bookstore. That's very different from the two buildings you mention.
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Aside from the scale of the building, I think part of the reason people like the DTC Borders because the glass is literally transparent and its function is figuratively transparent. It's a retail building so unlike its brethren (e.g., City Hall), it is literally open to anyone passing by.

People only rarely ever *need* to go to City Hall, so its function is infinitely more closed to the public than a bookstore's. That is one of City Hall's big failings, IMO: while its role in peoples' daily lives is limited, it does nothing to invite people in for those few times in their lives when they do need to go there. It projects itself as a walled off world where all kinds of bad government decisions are made, as an aloof or unwelcoming (potentially hostile?) place to anyone but the insiders who know their way around inside the building.
 
The stupid and totally unnecessary metal detectors are the biggest barrier to people walking into City Hall. Get rid of them, and install an art gallery in the lobby, along with a coffee cart or two.
 
Absolutely. The fact that most of the entrances (and the public outdoor spaces) are closed off to the public due to security reasons is a big problem.
 
Yes, it is. Cambridge City Hall does not use them. A security checkpoint tells the citizens, "We don't like you and don't trust you."
 
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