Hurley Building Redevelopment | 19 Staniford St | West End

Bananarama said:
What is explicitly anti-urban about it?
Click to expand...

I'll start with the fact that the Staniford St. frontage effectively creates a soulless, grey monolithic barrier between the roadway and the vegetated courtyard/open space that lies within the complex while also serving to create a massive wind tunnel.

Especially given it's urban location, rather than invite people in, it effectively keeps them out.
 
Bananarama said:
What is explicitly anti-urban about it?
Click to expand...

Simple: it's designed to be a compound isolated from people. The ring of buildings is non-permeable. Light wells and retaining walls prevent people on either side from interacting with the facades. The plaza is locked away from the surrounding neighborhoods and as such is reserved for the use of the employees, or more likely, kept completely devoid of life to preserve ever-so-precious sight lines on the brutalist facades, as was so central to that pro-brutalism piece in the Globe last week.

The "heroic" age of government buildings did this on purpose. The upper crust wanted their government in the city, but didn't want the unwashed nonwhite city mucking up their government. They had moved out to the suburbs but still felt they owned the city they'd left to other people, and so they kicked them all out, bulldozed their homes, and walled off a citadel from whatever of them they allowed to stay (the whole point of "heroic" is to be castle or fortress-like). Cities have blocks. Cities have streetwalls. Cities have mixed-use. Cities are permeable. Cities are not sculpture gardens that must be curated to maintain scenic vistas on specific "important" buildings (and before you say it, the Adams Courthouse is a handsome building close-up that deserves to be seen from a distance, while City Hall and the Hurley are blank walls close up that only gain form when viewed from a distance).

You can punch some holes through the ring of concrete and open some pedestrian lanes and maybe that helps, but fundamentally the SSC isn't just a proud monument to one of the worst humanitarian crimes committed in Boston's history, it's a crime in progress.
 
That statement sounds like a way for the state to punt and say "oops, no one can afford to preserve it, sorry" instead of attracting ire itself.
 
Massachoicetts said:
This building is one of, if not, the ugliest buildings I have ever seen in my life.

Not to mention, this separates the neighborhood with its barrier effect and serves 0 purpose where it is at.
Click to expand...
I suppose I will be vilified
vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
Click to expand...
You can vilify me once again vanshnookenraggen after my apparent violation of posting tone in an earlier post (which will not happen again), but I must state the following; you are more than likely in the minority here with your calling the Hurley Building an Architectural Gem???!!! - my ex-wife worked in this ponderous monstrosity decades ago, and I for one was depressed to the max every time I had to go into this Brutalist nightmare to fetch her out of there for a night out on the town. Brutalism is in my ardent opinion a disastrous and unsightly architectural style that should not in the least bit be subject to glorifying, venerating, preserving, reviving, what have you. The Hurley Building must be redeveloped in one fashion or another - redesigned to abate most if not all of its ponderous and unwelcoming visage and or complete demolition is very much warranted - BRUTALISM is a stain upon the architectural/urban landscape of Downtown Boston. On another related matter, I am mystified as to how many respondents to this Hurley Building thread are very, very much not in tune with development site parameters as laid out in the very recently compiled Draft Proposal for this project; sorry height aficionados (I am definitely not anti-high rise myself), but Zoning Restrictions for this site locus limit the height of any possible high rise building here to a very modest 400 FT maximum, more or less in line with the height of the scuttled Paul Rudolph-designed tower: where the 800 FT tower idea came from I can not figure out. But once again in line with my utter disdain for Brutalism, all I can say is thank God for the Paul Rudolph tower never seeing the light of day - a truly freaky, ugly sight to behold that would have been considered the much taller brother of the Boston City Hall nightmare. As well, I concur with many other respondents to this thread that a modernistic, glassy facade 400 FT (well shy of 800 FT) office building is in my opinion a far more preferable design in sharp contrast to a gray, chop-a-block concrete "Frankenstein's (or Rudolph's) Monster". Again, this is my opinion and everyone is welcome to their own, including those who venerate Brutalism.
 
Tension Member said:
....sorry height aficionados (I am definitely not anti-high rise myself), but Zoning Restrictions for this site locus limit the height of any possible high rise building here to a very modest 400 FT maximum, more or less in line with the height of the scuttled Paul Rudolph-designed tower: where the 800 FT tower idea came from I can not figure out.....
Click to expand...

Zoning doesn't really matter in this city, as most developments end up asking for an exception in exchange for being extorted. The 800' is the approximate height allowed here under the FAA restrictions, although it's probably closer to 775'. This site doesn't involve the hard-and-fast shadow on the common, other parks, or harbor rules. Without those encumbrances, it should be possible to at least exceed 700', especially with the sunk costs that will be involved here. It's literally right across the street from the 600' State Street tower too, so not like there isn't a (new) precedent for height around here.

Also, really the only place Boston can exceed the Hancock, besides a couple plots near the Pru, are the parcels near North Station, the jail on the other side of the ramps, and maybe by picking off one of the minor Charles River Park buildings. A new tallest in that area would look less out of place if there were other 600'-700'+ buildings in the neighborhood.
 
State employees who work in the Hurley Building have been told that they will not be returning to the Hurley after the end of remote work.
 
navigator4 said:
State employees who work in the Hurley Building have been told that they will not be returning to the Hurley after the end of remote work.
Click to expand...

Where would they be going? I was musing today that the Commonwealth should take advantage of the lax Downtown office market and lease space. Then they can divest the SSC, the Transportation Building, etc. and simplify their facilities the way Charlie must always have dreamed of...
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
Click to expand...

Not everyone wants a tall glass box here. Some of us wouldn't mind several buildings (it's 3.25 goddamn acres) that ENLIVEN the area at the pedestrian/humanoid level instead of the current Black Hole/Chernobyl it currently renders human life around it.

If the Hurley was a movie character it would be William H. Macy in The Cooler.

With all due respect, Van, next time you're in Boston, take a good walk around this building. All 6 sides. Tell me how much you enjoyed being next to this building and all it had to offer you, the pedestrian. And what it offers the city of Boston, the urban fabric and how it enlivens the city instead of deadening its surroundings.

But it does look awesome in the coffee table books.
 
Last edited:
shmessy said:
With all due respect, Van, next time you're in Boston, take a good walk around this building. All 6 sides. Tell me how much you enjoyed being next to this building and all it had to offer you, the pedestrian. And what it offers the city of Boston, the urban fabric and how it enlivens the city instead of deadening its surroundings.
Click to expand...

Oh, I totally get this buildings failings. When I lived here I loved walking around this building thinking about how it could be improved to better interact with the city. My rant wasn't in defense of a bad building but rather a counter to those who can't imagine this building as anything other than it is. I want to see brutalist buildings like these rehabilitated into good urban buildings, not simply knocked down and replaced with banal boxes.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I want to see brutalist buildings like these rehabilitated into good urban buildings
Click to expand...

Maybe the developer will surprise me, but this request seems similar to wanting South Station to have better acoustics as a concert venue or wanting Fenway Park to have brighter and more spacious apartments. The Hurley wasn't meant to be a good urban building.
 
MjolnirMan said:
I think the nearby Government Center Garage project is demonstrating a great example of how to creatively rehabilitate 1960s Urban Renewal Brutalism
Click to expand...
Ironic because half of it is getting demolished. TBH, it's probably cheaper for the developers to keep the garage rather than to build a new one from scratch. Besides, garage architecture won't be much better than the existing structure. That's like the only reason the remaining half is being kept.

The fact of the matter is, brutalist architecture is an acquired taste. The majority of population are going to hate it, a minority will say they are gems. In the end, you can keep arguing that it's a gem but the majority of people will disagree. It's like a durian fruit. A lot of people are going to say it tastes amazing but the large majority will say it's unappetizing because it smells like shit.
 
Last edited:
KentXie said:
The fact of the matter is, brutalist architecture is an acquired taste. The majority of population are going to hate it, a minority will say they are gems. In the end, you can keep arguing that it's a gem but the majority of people will disagree. It's like a durian fruit. A lot of people are going to say it tastes amazing but the large majority will say it's unappetizing because it smells like shit.
Click to expand...

But not all Brutalism is created equal. It’s perfectly valid to find the Christian Science Center gorgeous while hating the Government Service Center. It’s not the architectural style that’s at fault here.
 
Blackbird said:
But not all Brutalism is created equal. It’s perfectly valid to find the Christian Science Center gorgeous while hating the Government Service Center. It’s not the architectural style that’s at fault here.
Click to expand...
I dont like Brutalism in general but I love the Christian Science Center. Its the exception that proves the rule.
 
My girlfriend and I walked thru the plaza in the middle one saturday afternoon in september and it was junkie central. Its very isolated so it was one of the few times I didnt feel very safe in downtown Boston. The whole building and plaza are in bad, bad disrepair and the state should honestly be ashamed of the condition its in.

The whole complex would have been much better served if the original tower was built, especially if it were residential... It would have added needed vibrancy to the plaza. So just correct the wrong post haste and build a residential tower that will get the state money to fix up the other buildings and the plaza.
 
MjolnirMan said:
I think the nearby Government Center Garage project is demonstrating a great example of how to creatively rehabilitate 1960s Urban Renewal Brutalism
Click to expand...

Sure, but keep in mind, the approach there involves removing visible elements of the urban renewal project and hiding what remains behind all new construction. Do that to the Hurley, and is it actually saved? As I said earlier in the thread, I like the Hurley in the abstract, but it is terrible for where it lies. Whether we "save" it by hiding it, or whether we tear it down, there is nothing in the current structure that can be said to serve the city.
 
HenryAlan said:
Sure, but keep in mind, the approach there involves removing visible elements of the urban renewal project and hiding what remains behind all new construction. Do that to the Hurley, and is it actually saved? As I said earlier in the thread, I like the Hurley in the abstract, but it is terrible for where it lies. Whether we "save" it by hiding it, or whether we tear it down, there is nothing in the current structure that can be said to serve the city.
Click to expand...

I read that as the point of MjolnirMan's post. I don't think he was being kind to 1960s urban renewal brutalism--e.g., the garage project is great because it's erasing a terrible urban renewal era scar from view. I agree entirely too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top