Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion
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Padre Mike
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^ Love the idea!
JeffDowntown
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Note that the term is "Government" Center not City Hall. No one is talking about the State and Federal offices moving anywhere.
Padre Mike
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Which begs the question I've been dying to ask...why is it taking something like 20 years to rehab the Kennedy Fed. building? The area around the entrance has looked like a mess since I had a full head of hair!
atlantaden
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyl...wn-crossing/UO9BMZQfIU2R97HkkMlMDI/story.html
Nice article in today's Globe about Downtown Crossing.
Nice article in today's Globe about Downtown Crossing.
underground
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People in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about Art Deco, and look where we are today.
Source?
Not trying to be an ass. I just hear this kind of thing mentioned a lot, but haven't seen the evidence and am genuinely curious.
You're questioning whether that has ever happened?
I only have anecdotal evidence, but in the early 90's I attended a conference at a design and art School in Michigan. The campus was planned and designed by the original school's President, an architect, in the early part of the 20th century. My group had been invited into the original President's home for brunch and were given a tour of renovations/restoration work that as in progress. At some point in the mid-70s the interior, which had all of this beautiful detailing, had been completely drywalled over (or whatever material it was) because the then President of the School thought it needed to be modernized.
Here's the dining room, which was only half uncovered when I was there:
Of course this is an interior only, and not an entire building, but it's still surprising to me that someone thought this was of no value and should be covered up. I also saw other situations like this when I was a historic commissioner. Nothing on the scale of City Hall, but still.
Anyway, sorry to derail the thread. Return to the Downtown Crossing discussion.
So the new acorn lights have been installed on Summer St. Does anyone else feel that when they are the double fixtures, they should be perpendicular to the roadway? I feel like it makes the area seem more like a "place" and not a corridor.
underground
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I don't know if there's an academic source. Just something that tends to come up a lot when you're having this type of discussion.
Modernists didn't have a problem with any particular style, per-se. It was the entire concept of applied ornamentation and designing a building to look a certain way and fit within a predefined mold that they took issue with. With all the WWII advances in technology and engineering standards, they felt a building should aesthetically reflect its function and materality: hence all the exposed concrete, no real order to the windows, blank walls, etc. They were unforgiving "machines for living/working/building", nothing more. It was a revolutionary concept.
Also remember, modernism took hold in the US after a pretty long period of economic and cultural stagnation. Almost an entire generation of architects were out of work, and doing little more than working for WPA programs, if they could even do that. There was little to no innovation, and art deco never evolved into something new, it just stopped.
After the roaring 20s, the depression and then war rations made EVERYTHING, including the relatively new art deco buildings look old, outdated, sad, and dreary. On top of that, the US was now this massive powerhouse capable of doing anything, so why shouldn't they reinvent the wheel. Ironically, many of the modernists saw their form as going back to the greeks and roman ideals: after all, the arches, columns, colonnades, and domes that we so admire were invented to be functional, not for aesthetics. They saw what they were doing as much more pure and true to these ideals than say, colonial revival, with it's applied wooden pilasters, etc.
This wasn't the first time this had happened. Art deco, arts and crafts, streamline moderne and such all came out of the outright HATRED architects and the public had for the excesses in ornamentation and garishness of the victorian era.
Of course, eventually and to the bane of the innovators of modernism, it eventually became a "style". So you had everyone and their mother putting drywall, homasote, and fake wood paneling over period detailing in their historic homes and offices, you had this building on Market St in Brighton converted to look like this, etc, etc. Keeping up with the Joneses, and all that.
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Anyway, back to our originally scheduled programming.
I wish they would repave Washington with something other than red brick. It looks so 1980s trying to look like the 1880s its sad. Not only that, but the red brick simply clashes with nearly every building on that street.
Also remember, modernism took hold in the US after a pretty long period of economic and cultural stagnation. Almost an entire generation of architects were out of work, and doing little more than working for WPA programs, if they could even do that. There was little to no innovation, and art deco never evolved into something new, it just stopped.
After the roaring 20s, the depression and then war rations made EVERYTHING, including the relatively new art deco buildings look old, outdated, sad, and dreary. On top of that, the US was now this massive powerhouse capable of doing anything, so why shouldn't they reinvent the wheel. Ironically, many of the modernists saw their form as going back to the greeks and roman ideals: after all, the arches, columns, colonnades, and domes that we so admire were invented to be functional, not for aesthetics. They saw what they were doing as much more pure and true to these ideals than say, colonial revival, with it's applied wooden pilasters, etc.
This wasn't the first time this had happened. Art deco, arts and crafts, streamline moderne and such all came out of the outright HATRED architects and the public had for the excesses in ornamentation and garishness of the victorian era.
Of course, eventually and to the bane of the innovators of modernism, it eventually became a "style". So you had everyone and their mother putting drywall, homasote, and fake wood paneling over period detailing in their historic homes and offices, you had this building on Market St in Brighton converted to look like this, etc, etc. Keeping up with the Joneses, and all that.
----------------
Anyway, back to our originally scheduled programming.
I wish they would repave Washington with something other than red brick. It looks so 1980s trying to look like the 1880s its sad. Not only that, but the red brick simply clashes with nearly every building on that street.
That sounds like a plan that gives the city zero money...if they're unable to sell city hall to pay for a new city hall
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Earlier this year, the sprinklers activated and flooded the stores. There was extensive water damage to all surfaces & merchandise. They have been closed ever since. at&t moved back into their old spot across Bromfield from before they built that new store in the former Wendys. The Children's Place did not relocate and instead directs you to the CambridgeSide Galleria.
DigitalSciGuy
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Yeah, I remember hearing about that. Here's to hoping this increases the chances of Midwood or someone else pulling out an LOI to get One Bromfield back in play...
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Here's really, really hoping that does not happen. The building currently there is a fantastic, great-looking, historic building that contributes greatly to Downtown Crossing as an urban, attractive neighborhood with strong potential. There are plenty of empty lots where another aluco-bond special like the Kensington can be built.
If it is going to happen, it won't be for some time. I'm friendly with Bromfield Pen Shop owner, who just signed a new lease through 2016. So nothing's happening there until start of 2017, at the absolute earliest.
And even that assumes the financing/selection of architect/selection of general contractor/community outreach/BRA (re)submission, and other permitting happens with Swiss clock-like precision. Oh, and that any new sudden downswing in the market doesn't upset any plans.
So, realistically... maybe something starts there around 2020?
I think they're installing a crane, what idk
It's a shame that the renderings of the final project don't show a restoration of the missing parapet.