NEMA Boston | 399 Congress St. | Seaport

bosdevelopment said:
I actutally think the building is kinda cool. I like the overhang. I understand our expectations are that of a flat-iron masterpiece on such a parcel. Ultimately it's the height restrictions that make this neighborhood so average, not the rt.128 inspired architecture.
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How do height restrictions make for an average neighborhood, architecturally speaking?

And it is the rte. 128 inspired architecture that makes this neighborhood dull, in my opinion. Not to mention the cheap construction materials and lack of an all encompassing master plan.
 
the building above would remind me of a giant caterpillar coming to eat the convention center of it were plopped into the seaport district.

I think the Madison as proposed is much cooler. The nautical theme is a little bit more subtle.
 
I think this building is pretty cool...I think I liked the older design a little bit better, but this design is still nice in my opinion. It'd be great if they could actually put some money into the facade and not do the pre-cast brick, but that's not too likely.

In regards to covering up the Big Dig vent, I don't see how they could do that on such a small parcel...what's the deal with the roads surrounding the vent? How many of them are covered and how many of them could be covered?
 
lndscpr said:
the building above would remind me of a giant caterpillar coming to eat the convention center of it were plopped into the seaport district.

I think the Madison as proposed is much cooler. The nautical theme is a little bit more subtle.
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Clearly it resembles a cruise ship.
 
lndscpr said:
the building above would remind me of a giant caterpillar coming to eat the convention center of it were plopped into the seaport district.

I think the Madison as proposed is much cooler. The nautical theme is a little bit more subtle.
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The last thing the Seaport needs is subtle. Enough of all of this, Boston needs bold.
 
As far as I can tell, the building, if built as the pic shows, will be clean and handsome for the area. Building around the vent building at this point my interfere with its purpose, to bring clean air into the tunnel, inasmuch as the intake vents appear to be along the side of the building. Unlike the vent building on Atlantic Ave, around which was built the hotel/condo, the South Boston vent building was not designed to be encased within a concealing structure.

I think, however, the vent building, though huge, will fade into the background of the entire district once it is fully built up. It may come to be appreciated as a kind of urban sculpture.

I too would like to see bold and innovative architecture throughout the seaport district. A percentage of the new development, however, will need to be made up of "background" buildings, designed to set off other, architecturally innovative, buildings. Otherwise, an urban area could become a mish-mash of bold stand-outs that don't relate appropriately to each other and blend into a cohesive whole. Imagine if Manhattan were filled exclusively with buildings like the ATT or Chrysler buildings. In fact, Rockefeller Center is a good example of subtle "background" architecture successfully blending, yet standing out as brilliant urban design, due to the placement of the individual buildings, pedestrian plaza, and ground floor mixed use space.
 
This building looks far far better than the other hotels that are going up in the area and the terrible apartment buildings. But, as others have remarked, it depends a lot on the quality of the materials used.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

I don't know what the status of this project is, but I stumbled across these renderings on the Group One Partners site.

Among other things, they appear to have drastically tamed the cantilever over the Haul Rd since the last renderings we saw a while back.

Congress_4_485.jpg


Congress_3_821.jpg


Congress_2_979.jpg


Congress_1_559.jpg
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Looks pretty sharp. Shame there can't be any street interaction since it is perched atop a few highway ramps.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Um...WTC Far West?
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

^^ otherwise known as Battery Park City.

More or less... still beats a massive-ass, POS parking lot, though. God, do I hate the South Boston waterfront parking lots. What other city of a class Boston tries to be in has entire neighborhoods of parking lots?
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

itchy said:
^^ otherwise known as Battery Park City.

More or less... still beats a massive-ass, POS parking lot, though. God, do I hate the South Boston waterfront parking lots. What other city of a class Boston tries to be in has entire neighborhoods of parking lots?
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Mission Bay was not too long ago a sea of parking lots. But that's all changed/changing now. The new UCSF campus is enormous.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

czsz said:
Um...WTC Far West?
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Its oddball footprint automatically makes it more interesting than the WTC buildings. The varied massing is welcome as well. It's greatest asset was, IMO, the bold cantilever that hung out over the Haul Rd., but like I said, it appears that it has been wussified. Yes, it could and should be better. Other than its street-level and its big blank backside, though, I think it's... pretty alright. Hopefully it gets refined for the better, with an emphasis on creating a continuous pedestrian Congress St. through the Fort Point.

I see where you're coming from with the WTC reference, though -- more brick and glass. That said, I'd take any of the WTC buildings over the utter garbage that Fallon is throwing up the Seaport. He makes the WTC towers look like masterpieces in comparison.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Congress_2_979.jpg



in this rendering is the Madison hotel on Boston Common or has part of Tremont street been moved to Fan Pier? :D
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

It's not just the brick and glass that make it WTC far West. It's the similar height and girth, the illusion of "varied massing" notwithstanding.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Looks alright. The breakup between glass and brick looks to be good enough to not be a total bore (high praise I know).

But as with most renderings today, it's impossible to tell what those precast panels will be comprised of: is that brick-on-concrete (like Trilogy) or is it straight up concrete? If it's the latter then it appears we'll get something like what's going up on the red Northeastern tower... yucky at best. But if (precast) brick is used, I think it could end up being one of the better looking buildings in the area.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

?What other city of a class Boston tries to be in has entire neighborhoods of parking lots??

Lots {Pun?} of places in transition in cities in transition -- for instance what is now a fancy office district in London {featuring the somewhat bizarrely named ?One Canada Square?, a C?sar Pelli Pru-sized skyscraper called Canary Wharf i used to be a Wharf -- there's still acres and acres of vacant lots or lots surrounded with barbed wire in that part of London

As far as Fan Pier is concerned 150 years ago {circa 1860) it was a mud flat at high tide
Then it was filled to make room for a major pier with a fan of railroad tracks {hence the name} {crca 1900}
Still later when the pier ceased having any ships -- Fan Pier and a lot of surrounding acreage became a sea of parking lots

Next it and the surrounding acreage will be a bunch of square-ish-box mid-rise buildings

Time flows and things change -- it?s just that in Boston -- times seems to stand still sometimes for a decade or two {kind of a Boston version of Dog Years}

Westy
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Is it really that progress is slow in Boston or is it that we are here to watch the the process every day making it seem slow. I think it's somewhere in the middle.

Most US cities build slowly for their size unless there is a huge influx of new population (i.e. new customers). Considering the stagnant population of Boston, its growth is remarkable and due pretty much to new technology development and the generation of wealth through new companies and national/international companies in the area.
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Progress really is slow as hell in Boston. I see construction in other cities in other forums and they change all the time. Maybe in other cities suburban growth is high so urban growth is slower but in Boston there's neither. And NYC, Chicago, LA, Miami, and even SF have a ton of growth, much more then Boston. I hate to be pessimistic but in NYC, you can feel the construction everywhere, with new buildings, recladdings, and renovations. Boston is stagnant because of high NIMBY power and ultra-slow bureaucracy. Yeah it may have one or two towers going up, but there doesn't seem to be any enthusiasm for them, and most have crappy design and are watered down by ridiculous regulations, extreme NIMBYism, and mayorial politics. LA doesn't have any of those, in fact they're correcting their suburban mistakes and rapidly urbanizing their core with a new subway, many new highrises, and transit-orientated development. Which brings me to this point, the T sucks! North Station metro station is just 2 years old, yet it already looks old and run-down. South Station is the only good metro station IMO, all the others look like CRAP (like the new MGH station, how come they didn't cover the whole platform with glass, the floor's already dirty, and the T font looks pretty bad and lots of old stations are brutalist masterpieces that don't actually work well for the commuter).
 
Re: Madison Seaport Hotel

Wow, the North Station T stop still looks quite spiffy to me. Compared to any station in New York, actually, nearly every single T station is shimmering.
 
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