Constellation Center | 43 Thorndike St | East Cambridge

unterbau said:
I think disneyland is an apt comparison. It's just such a generic image of victorian architecture.
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Based on the context being a historic tourist centered coastal town, I don't see the need for every new structure to be carrying out the everlasting architectural revolution. There's nothing wrong with building something in an old style, as long as it is done well, and the location merits it. Now if something like this was proposed for a biotech district, medical district, or otherwise up to the minute state of technology type area of activity, then it would be problematic.
 
^ Why? We have plenty of examples of contemporary architecture working well in historic settings, and even of the opposite. Contrast can be a good thing.
 
Even if you are building in a classicist style, you can still try for something interesting.
 
unterbau said:
Even if you are building in a classicist style, you can still try for something interesting.
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I agree. But what is with this "Disneyland" label? To me it means artificial, nostalgic, cartoonish, cheap, phony and manipulative. I don't necessarily see that here.

The reason this building looks like it does is because the building that was demolished to make way for it looked like this:
rockport_music_hall_before.jpg


Look familiar?
SHALIN_LIU_ext.jpg


Essentially the same facade--envelope,massing, and style. The people of Rockport decided they wanted to preserve their Main Street as a coherent whole. They did gussy it up quite a bit, presumably to differentiate it from the commercial buildings around it and visually announce that this is an important civic building.

Now, I think some of the Main St. facade details are wonky, especially the window surrounds. But that aside, this reflexive "Disneyland" label hurled upon any building that incorporates an 'historic" style is horseshit.

The tenets of Modernism were codified around 100 years ago; the Victorian Era preceded it directly. So why are contemporary buildings built according to the former lauded as minor masterpieces while contemporary buildings built according to the latter dismissed as "Disneyland"?

Modernism, ironically, has become just another historic style--just ask Docomomo. But I don't believe its potential has been exhausted...just as I don't believe the potential of the other historic styles have been exhausted.

Anyways, my point is modernism is not naturally more "appropriate" than any other "historic" styles simply because.
 
I'd be thrilled to have that Rockport concert hall in any neighborhood I live in.
 
I think the newness of the building can be somewhat attributed to the 'disney look'
 
Good thoughts on this briv. I've hurled some of this type of reactionary, anti-historicist criticism at Stern's Spangler Center at HBS (I building I contend is silly and self-indulgent). But the Rockport project, in its context, is a winner.

Insiders info: I know some of the trustees of the RCMF. There was significant legal wrangling with abutters and a few others. This project almost didn't happen. I think the facade is a bone thrown to the NIMBYs who initially opposed the project.
 
BB, can you elaborate on your feelings about Spangler v. this? Is it solely because the Rockport hall replaced a similar facade?
 
czsz said:
BB, can you elaborate on your feelings about Spangler v. this?
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The post in question was from a few years ago, and was probably lost in one of the board crashes we experienced (I'll try and find it in the archives when I have more time). Even ablarc chided me for being such a kill-joy.

IMO, Stern's achievement with Spangler is a well crafted counterfeit. It's a reinforced concrete building with Corbusian interior streets, dressed up in Stanford White clothing inside and out. I just find it all silly and self-important. And the HBS campus has fine examples of Modernism and Post-Modernism.

Honestly, I think my feelings about Spangler are more about my feelings about Stern. I don't see an ounce of originality in any of his work.

The Rockport Hall obeys the rules of its context; I look forward to hearing many concerts there.
 
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I don't see an ounce of originality in any of his work.
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Stern took a bunch of heat on this for his work at my alma mater, UVA. His design for The Darden School of Business is frequently slapped with the Disney label.

Entrance:
555-darden%20school.png


Interior:
2289298473_2dc3f25a7f.jpg
 
But without some historical/contextual anchor, you get incoherence, a la Brandeis. That's why I like Darden. That's why I like Spangler. Both play on the context and feeling of "academic classicism" to convey the experience of place: you are in a world-class university; yes a recent extension of it, but an intrinsic part of it nonetheless. Playing on feeling and experience: is that Disney?

A lot of New Urbanism can be seen as Disneyfied. Poundbury, Seaside, Prospect New Town... just because these developments place a premium on feeling and experience - and so does Disney - but does that make them equivalent?
 
Personally I like Daden and Spangler as well. Perhaps part of the backlash comes from the fact that both schools have architecture colleges that are on the leading edge of architecture styles (i.e., lean towards progressive rather than traditional design).
 
Shepard said:
But without some historical/contextual anchor, you get incoherence, a la Brandeis. That's why I like Darden. That's why I like Spangler. Both play on the context and feeling of "academic classicism" to convey the experience of place: you are in a world-class university; yes a recent extension of it, but an intrinsic part of it nonetheless. Playing on feeling and experience: is that Disney?
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It's marketing! Disneyland is filled with artificially historical environments to evoke an atmosphere of being in some distant time and place. And isn't that what these faux-historical campuses are intending to do? Convincing future students that they have travelled to some distant ivy-league wonderland to live out the true college experience?
 
unterbau said:
It's marketing! Disneyland is filled with artificially historical environments to evoke an atmosphere of being in some distant time and place. And isn't that what these faux-historical campuses are intending to do? Convincing future students that they have travelled to some distant ivy-league wonderland to live out the true college experience?
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Or like major corporations occupying urban skyscrapers to convince employees and clients that they are actually working in or with big powerful businesses?

All architecture is marketing. Can we get over it and move on?
 
Can't deny that, but there's a level of fantasy they are trying to create. an educational theme park if you will.
 
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