Middlesex County Courthouse Redevelopment | 40 Thorndike St | East Cambridge

chrisbrat said:
I don't think it's purely nostalgia (could be wrong), but I preferred the previous.

More singular. This could be anything, anywhere.
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Thanks for saying this, Chris. Every time I see this thing, I think it is banal and generic, and basically just horrible. Yeah it housed a prison, but I agree the original building was better.
 
Architecture opinions are so funny.

I found the old building oppressive and depressing. I think the new building is A-OK... while tall, its unremarkability lets it take a back seat to the beauty of East Cambridge's brick courthouses and old townhouses.

That said, I think the brutalist concrete Boston City Hall is astoundingly beautiful and I gawk at it every time I walk by, so clearly my architecute opinions should not be taken in very high regard 🤷‍♂️

I do think nostalgia matters a lot with these opinions. I did not frequent East Cambridge when the old jail was there, and I did not exist when Scollay Square existed, so I can enjoy the new buildings without missing the old ones.
 
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I wonder if the Owners will have a Shaman perform a ceremony to rid the site of ghosts and bad juju of prisoners past. The owner of Alex and Ani stores had this ceremony performed at their new office build out in RI and I thought it was corny but in a place like this it might not be a bad idea. I'll just leave this here Liberty Hotel
 
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type001 said:
I'm on the side of this being a complete success.
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The old version might have been cool from afar, but not so for the people who had to live/work near it often. The new version may be less unique, but it is, as a whole, much more harmonious from both near and far. It is a success in my book as well.
 
chrisbrat said:
I don't think it's purely nostalgia (could be wrong), but I preferred the previous.

More singular. This could be anything, anywhere.
Click to expand...
the thing is, at the moment 'anything, anywhere' is far more generic and less unique than this.
I like it.
The old one was interesting but stuck out like a sore thumb and was terrible at street level.
This works much better, especially considering it's on the line of 2 or 3 story residential and larger bio tech commercial.
 
After having served Jury Duty several times at the old Court House, the view was great while you had to wait around to be picked or not. Beyond that, I found the building depressing. I MUCH prefer the new iteration. I personally think it fits much nicer into the urban surroundings.
 
This project has a lot of nice angles from all over East Cambridge:

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I really like this project. I liked it from the renderings, and it's turned out quite nice.
 
It works because it’s not the same height as everything else around it. Of course, the height is part of why the neighbors were so wary of redevelopment.
 
RandomWalk said:
It works because it’s not the same height as everything else around it. Of course, the height is part of why the neighbors were so wary of redevelopment.
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Yep. Put this in the middle of Kendall and it wouldn't be noticed.
 
The Seaport and Assembly suffer some from the uniformity of their height. Urbanism requires variety. The more recent clean sheet (or nearly so) can’t replicate it without leaving money on the table.
 
^I agree with the above commentary that making this stand out was not as much of an architectural challenge as it would be in Seaport or Assembly.

But I think this team deserves some credit, as there are some noticeably effective architectural choices: As mentioned, the community hated this behemoth for its heft and imposition on the neighborhood. The team added cutouts to make it less of a monolith. They worked the ground level to provide a build-up (with ramps, terraces) to the entry elvel.

To deal with its imposing heft, they chose a terracotta red that integrates with the sea of historic brick next door; however, they left several planes gray so as not to overdo it. And most notably, they went with frameless corner glass throughout the height that works wonders to reduce the heaviness of this thing perceived by the eye.

It may have been a softball pitch, but they did hit it over the fence.
 
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