Some folks loathe the Modernist architecture of City Hall and its cousins by Rudolph and Sert. They want the Brutalist "offenses" torn down, although (or because) these have obvious artistic aspirations:
Here are five that are as bad urbanistically but without redeeming artistic characteristics. The real Modernist abominations that deserve wrecking are under-the-radar, anti-urban banalities that despoil distinguished surroundings.
Everyone agrees on the execrable Midtown Motor Inn:
While you're at it, though, take out those awful white corner buildings at Mass Ave with their laughably inept relationship to the sidewalk:
And let the replacement take its place with the boulevard buildings waiting to spill over onto the Midtown' underutilized land:
Hardly noticed by most because it's so mousy --but blocking a prime opportunity-- is the comparably awful Harvard Square Motor Hotel:
Perched on its acropolis of cars, this pustule from suburbia thinks it's still in Waltham --though it squats on an urban site axial with Harvard Square:
I say tearrr it down pronto (way before City Hall!) and replace it with something worthy of its monumental locale:
Quincy's Granite Trust springs to mind, the world's smallest skyscraper. Just right for Harvard Square:
Sad Quincy! You can't take a picture anywhere without parking lots. Pitiable shards are all that's left. Brutalized and beat up, there's hardly any there there (at least anything urban). Where I live in sunbelt suburbia, they build places to this pattern in place of shopping malls: parking all around a little scenographic intersection of "city streets" with chain stores. Two-dimensional and public- relational, they're called lifestyle-centers or power centers, or something. But they only attract customers if they're brand new and kept up.
Granite could be a nifty terminus for two channels of space-- one to greet subway arrivers:
Also ripe for excision is this carbuncle of modernism that mars the South End's nicest stretch. And look! it comes complete with parking lot (where once was schoolyard):
Talk about out-of-scale. Actually shorter than its neighbors, NIMBYs note --but will you look at what it does to the street? Cancer in the tenderloin:
Have you ever enjoyed walking beside this? It's right astride your stroll from Back Bay Station to Union Park or the BCA:
Fine scale, coarse scale.
All in all, an obscenity.
Surgery could rid a potentially charming urban place of this modernist boil:
Here it is in context, poisoning its surroundings:
A building with the footprint of a block. A block of the same size with the diversity of 14 buildings.
The 14 buildings at the same scale. You could replicate them on the footprint of the modern horror, and end up with quite a nice little urban enclave on two sides of the T station:
South End gentrification took forever because of the crime problem. It's hard to believe these were ever thought of as improvements:
Sinister presences, like hooded klansmen:
Equally bad seen from the street:
Malevolent and dispiriting buildings. Tough. Really tough. Even tough for the Bronx:
Why so tough?
On Huntington Avenue, Miami massing glares across the street at dilapidated rowhouses. Nothing good can be said about the street smarts of this project or its townhouse neighbor with the curvy streets. Too big and too new to replace, these will afflict the city for decades:
Don't even get me going on this abomination in Charlestown --easily the stupidest building in Boston. Should be sent skittering back to the suburbs where it belongs. And to think it's right beside City Square, a place once worthy of its name:
Yup, that's the Constitution right next door. Hundreds of tourists have to trek by this daily.
Who says nothing's perfect? This building is as perfectly idiotic as it's possible to be. It has not one single, solitary redeeming characteristic. It is 100% unadulterated fecal matter. It needs to be knocked down forthwith, no questions asked.
With a gallery of clunkers like the ones above, couldn't we maybe cut City Hall a little slack?
Here are five that are as bad urbanistically but without redeeming artistic characteristics. The real Modernist abominations that deserve wrecking are under-the-radar, anti-urban banalities that despoil distinguished surroundings.
Everyone agrees on the execrable Midtown Motor Inn:
While you're at it, though, take out those awful white corner buildings at Mass Ave with their laughably inept relationship to the sidewalk:
And let the replacement take its place with the boulevard buildings waiting to spill over onto the Midtown' underutilized land:
Hardly noticed by most because it's so mousy --but blocking a prime opportunity-- is the comparably awful Harvard Square Motor Hotel:
Perched on its acropolis of cars, this pustule from suburbia thinks it's still in Waltham --though it squats on an urban site axial with Harvard Square:
I say tearrr it down pronto (way before City Hall!) and replace it with something worthy of its monumental locale:
Quincy's Granite Trust springs to mind, the world's smallest skyscraper. Just right for Harvard Square:
Sad Quincy! You can't take a picture anywhere without parking lots. Pitiable shards are all that's left. Brutalized and beat up, there's hardly any there there (at least anything urban). Where I live in sunbelt suburbia, they build places to this pattern in place of shopping malls: parking all around a little scenographic intersection of "city streets" with chain stores. Two-dimensional and public- relational, they're called lifestyle-centers or power centers, or something. But they only attract customers if they're brand new and kept up.
Granite could be a nifty terminus for two channels of space-- one to greet subway arrivers:
Also ripe for excision is this carbuncle of modernism that mars the South End's nicest stretch. And look! it comes complete with parking lot (where once was schoolyard):
Talk about out-of-scale. Actually shorter than its neighbors, NIMBYs note --but will you look at what it does to the street? Cancer in the tenderloin:
Have you ever enjoyed walking beside this? It's right astride your stroll from Back Bay Station to Union Park or the BCA:
Fine scale, coarse scale.
All in all, an obscenity.
Surgery could rid a potentially charming urban place of this modernist boil:
Here it is in context, poisoning its surroundings:
A building with the footprint of a block. A block of the same size with the diversity of 14 buildings.
The 14 buildings at the same scale. You could replicate them on the footprint of the modern horror, and end up with quite a nice little urban enclave on two sides of the T station:
South End gentrification took forever because of the crime problem. It's hard to believe these were ever thought of as improvements:
Sinister presences, like hooded klansmen:
Equally bad seen from the street:
Malevolent and dispiriting buildings. Tough. Really tough. Even tough for the Bronx:
Why so tough?
On Huntington Avenue, Miami massing glares across the street at dilapidated rowhouses. Nothing good can be said about the street smarts of this project or its townhouse neighbor with the curvy streets. Too big and too new to replace, these will afflict the city for decades:
Don't even get me going on this abomination in Charlestown --easily the stupidest building in Boston. Should be sent skittering back to the suburbs where it belongs. And to think it's right beside City Square, a place once worthy of its name:
Yup, that's the Constitution right next door. Hundreds of tourists have to trek by this daily.
Who says nothing's perfect? This building is as perfectly idiotic as it's possible to be. It has not one single, solitary redeeming characteristic. It is 100% unadulterated fecal matter. It needs to be knocked down forthwith, no questions asked.
With a gallery of clunkers like the ones above, couldn't we maybe cut City Hall a little slack?
