Liberty Mutual Tower | 157 Berkeley Street | Back Bay

Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Always a lurker, but have never posted anything. I live around the corner from the new Liberty Mutual building and grabbed some shots on Saturday. This building doesn't wow me, but has slowly grown on me.

Hoping to start contributing on a regular basis.
I have photos to share but cannot figure out how to attach them. Help!
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Upload to flickr or some other photo hosting service. Obtain a direct link and insert it "
" without the quotes.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Got some different angles yesterday.







 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Heh... Second to last pic makes the Hancock look like a dormer.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Not sure this building was an improvement for anyone in the Bay Village.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

It ruins the skyline view from the south. Of course if it were thinner and taller, that would've helped, but this is Boston. What can you?
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Wow. Downright stumpy from this angle! I hate to join the pack of negative Nancy's, but what a bad angle for this building! It's so much better when you're right up next to it and it's in your face.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

In all honesty the stubbiness doesn't bother me that much, I think it helps bridging the gap between the Financial District and the Back Bay, at least from certain angles. The W Hotel has a similar effect. No it doesn't look great but given the lack of developable land there (as far as I can tell), it's better than nothing;



Granted 100 or so extra feet of height would be nice but...
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

In the end, the verdict is probably that it is a well above average quality building in both material and design that looks its best situationally, for example from Park Square and East Berkeley Street.

Landmark, no. Solid citizen, yes.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

+1

Solid citizen indeed.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

BostonUrbEx said:
Wow. Downright stumpy from this angle! I hate to join the pack of negative Nancy's, but what a bad angle for this building! It's so much better when you're right up next to it and it's in your face.
Click to expand...

It doesn't irk me that badly, though it would be nice if it matched the sub-cornice height of the Berkeley Building as a few renders had suggested.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

^ I think that difference in height is simply due to the angle the picture was taken from and the fact that LM is two blocks further away than the Berkeley Building. I think?
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Even at its stumpiest viewpoint, it still looks great both on its own and next to its older/ bigger siblings.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

As an occasional visitor to Boston, I think the building looks great. I would prefer it to be taller, but whatevs, it is Boston. Be thankful this building has some character and personality.

You could have easily ended up with the new Boston Properties "masterpiece" on 8th Ave. 40 stories of laziness....

 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

"Czervik.Construction": your screen name rocks.

"Ask Wang, he'll tell you. We just bought property behind the Great Wall of China. On the good side!"

[if this precipitates an avalanche of "Caddyshack"-quoting, well... there are worse fates for a thread to suffer than digressions into one of the 1980s most seminal cultural productions.]
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

I bet you were something before electricity. Yes sir, you have outed me. Strangely, no one on Wirednewyork real estate developments has noticed yet.


DBM said:
"Czervik.Construction": your screen name rocks.

"Ask Wang, he'll tell you. We just bought property behind the Great Wall of China. On the good side!"

[if this precipitates an avalanche of "Caddyshack"-quoting, well... there are worse fates for a thread to suffer than digressions into one of the 1980s most seminal cultural productions.]
Click to expand...
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Czervik.Construction said:
As an occasional visitor to Boston, I think the building looks great. I would prefer it to be taller, but whatevs, it is Boston. Be thankful this building has some character and personality.

You could have easily ended up with the new Boston Properties "masterpiece" on 8th Ave. 40 stories of laziness....]
Click to expand...

Great handle, Al; obviously a patron of the classics.

Click to expand...

I can't believe anything like this is still getting built - and in NYC even. It's so Caddyshack vintage 1980 crap. Strongly supports the "Liberty Mutual is a win because it could have been much worse" argument.
 
Re: Liberty Mutual plans major Boston expansion

Boston architecture on balance is much better than what NYC is getting today. In NY, there are select micro-neighborhoods (e.g., the Meatpacking/Highline area) that get lots of good stuff.

The rest of the city - the Garment District, which is being raped by cheap hotels; Downtown, especially the Financial District and Chinatown, which are being similarly raped; the Upper East Side, which has been getting raped for 60 years by postwar architecture; Downtown Brooklyn; Long Island City - they are all getting some truly awful architecture that would have us in Boston up in arms.

NYC has much lower quality new stuff overall; I'm not sure why the residents aren't more up in arms over it - either they're more apathetic, or the occasional shiny bauble of interesting architecture (New York by Gehry, to a lesser degree de Portzamparc's One 57, Ingels' Pyramid, etc.) distracts them enough not to notice the legions of absolutely hideous Best Westerns and Courtyards by Marriott going up.
 
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