It looks vulgar to me.I don't know what I expected but this looks like a super standard suburban Dick's store.
Keep those corporate soulless boxes developing for the masses. Make Boston Proud.
Lord and Taylor at least had an outward appearance of class, which IMO complemented the upscale urban setting of the Back Bay. Not to sound snobby, but does everything everywhere have to be at the lowest common denominator taste-wise?Was Lord and Taylor any different?
I kind of agree. To me it's more about facade's scale. It's a city street not a stroad. It needs to be seen from next to it, not across the mall parking lot, or at a glance from Route 1 at 80mph. It's post-modernist bleed over. The city scale buildout is now an odd request in America.Lord and Taylor at least had an outward appearance of class, which IMO complemented the upscale urban setting of the Back Bay. Not to sound snobby, but does everything everywhere have to be at the lowest common denominator taste-wise?
I understand your point, but I think that at least from the street perspective you're romanticizing the past a bit here. The Lord and Taylor looked like a big box, about what you'd find at any suburban mall, and now the Dicks looks like a differently colored big box.Lord and Taylor at least had an outward appearance of class, which IMO complemented the upscale urban setting of the Back Bay. Not to sound snobby, but does everything everywhere have to be at the lowest common denominator taste-wise?
Fully agree.I understand your point, but I think that at least from the street perspective you're romanticizing the past a bit here. The Lord and Taylor looked like a big box, about what you'd find at any suburban mall, and now the Dicks looks like a differently colored big box.
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I don't think either iteration of this building can really be considered an architectural masterpiece. In terms the shift from an upscale department store to a sporting goods store and what that says about society:
So with all of these things in mind, a shift to a store that specializes in casual, comfortable clothing as well as sporting equipment makes sense. Is that a good or bad thing? I don't think it's either, really. Society's clothing preferences have never stayed static, and I don't doubt that sometime a new trend will overtake sportswear and stores like Dicks will either adapt or die off, just as their predecessors have.
- People are more active than they used to be, especially with activities like jogging that aren't organized sports.
- Universities are growing, BU has 4000 more students than it did 10 years ago. Therefore the number of people engaged with activities like school sports is also growing
- People are shifting away from office work. If you're working from home you might as well be comfortable.
- People are increasingly disinterested in formal wear, and would rather wear something easy and comfortable outside of the most formal of events like weddings or high level events.
This is only true if you consider Lord and Taylor to be high end. I'm fairly young, and statistically a majority of people in Boston are too. To me Lord and Taylor is just an expensive (By suruban mall standards) department store, it has essentially no brand value, which I think is the main difference.That said, this does feel like replacing a Gucci store in Beverly Hills with a Dave & Buster’s or Chuck E Cheese, tonally.
I agree. This site, in any kind of a rational world, would be occupied by an office/residential high rise having shops/bars/restaurants on the ground floor. I don't know how the gods of suburbia were allowed to plop down this Dick's white elephant onto this prime location perfect for high rise development.The nature of the retail at this site is a minor part of the urban disconnect.
The real problem is a suburban style low-rise big-box retail building right on the Back Bay high spine. That is the design abomination.
I think that stretch of Boylston has always been a bit grittier. My earliest experiences of the blocks between Exeter and Mass Ave were connected to the dive bars that used to populate the area, like Dad's, Poorhouse, Bukowski's Tavern, etc. And even the more cultured elements tended toward avant garde, like the old ICA. In short, it was not the Commonwealth Mall section of the Back Bay. When that Marshals add mentioned up thread came along, I actually found it confusing, because I had not, up until that point, even really considered Boylston to be emblematic of the Back Bay anyway. And if we go back further in time, the entire Hynes/Prudential area was a frieght yard. Again, nothing fancy about these uses, but all of them certainly critical to urban life for the times.Lord and Taylor at least had an outward appearance of class, which IMO complemented the upscale urban setting of the Back Bay. Not to sound snobby, but does everything everywhere have to be at the lowest common denominator taste-wise?
This development would have made a lot more sense as a 50 story residential with the store at the bottom. It's a waste of prime real estate!
This is the truth-
The ongoing trend of corporate development transformation in historical areas and architecture is due to the bleak economic landscape our country faces. The corporations are prioritizing quantity over quality, which seems to be economically rational. This appears to be a diminishing sense of pride and foresight for long-term development for the American People.
America grapples with substantial debt burdens and deteriorating infrastructure, the value placed on preserving heritage and high quality development has significantly weakened.
Factor this data. I believe it cost roughly 4 Trillion to build out the entire Dubai. America is 35 Trillion in Debt and running a deficit of 1.8Trillion.
American Taxpayers should be living in Gold houses and driving on Gold streets.
Oh cool. I haven't been in yet, but you can see the climbing wall from the street, which is fun to watch as you go by. That's one nice architectural detail, I guess. And all those extras seem specifically designed to make in-person shopping at least more interesting that just ordering stuff online. Hope it works.It has a 4-sided two-story climbing wall, batting cage, golf simulator, and a lot of cool stuff.