Paul Rudolph's Government Services Center

It's a shame that PDF in post 21 is no longer available. It was an amazing article raising a number of points about the design methodology of the building/mindset of Rudolph. It's veracity could of course be debated.
 
It's a shame that PDF in post 21 is no longer available. It was an amazing article raising a number of points about the design methodology of the building/mindset of Rudolph. It's veracity could of course be debated.


This is another good article but the Harv Design Mag one is good too. While Rudolph may have very well maxed out his interests in the psychology of space on this design, I'm highly doubtful that he would make the building "echo hallucinations" or whatever that article says - I'm pretty sure that's a myth, first, because it's way too contrived, and secondly, because the building isn't any nuttier than many over the top 20th century designs.

I've spent a lot of time in the Lindemann and it's very cool inside, not THAT crazy but it's pretty amazing. The interior walls are now only partially jagged corduroy concrete: the walls of the interior suites have mostly been plastered over long ago for safety (the concrete corduroy is very sharp, and that was certainly a horrendous choice for back when there were inpatient psych units there). The chapel is locked now, but I've been in, and it's very, very cool.

Growing up in Boston, I hated Brutalism, but the older I get, the more I appreciate it. Despite the wreckage of urban renewal — extreme compared to many cities and its effects amplified by the tiny size of Boston proper — we are lucky in many ways to have so much Brutalist buildings here. The CSC is one of the most incredible plazas/monumental spaces anywhere in the world. City Hall is awesome, it just doesn't fit well with its surroundings and the interior work spaces are terrible. The Green Building, Gund Hall, Carpenter Center...

Unfortunately the Lindemann, despite being an awesome building, does not fit well into a dense urban area and obstructs passage between blocks severely. This first problem is really due to the fact that the cut-through from Staniford/Merrimac to New Chardon is fenced off, which isolates the rotunda to all but the K2 smokers and peddlers who sit out there, parasitizing the vulnerable people who live inside and scaring off any milder residents and passersby alike. The second crime, one that is unforgiveable at this point, is the cheap, chain link fences that have surrounded the entire exterior of the building, as well as all the benches and most passageways for years and years. It looks awful and it's quite frankly an embarassment. Lastly, the state just uses the sidewalks as parking lots. I really dont understand how some firebrand hasn't blasted this insanity through the local papers. It's so not okay.

At the end of the day, though, the real problem with this building is that, like City Hall, it just doesnt serve its purpose well. I am sad to say that it probably will be demolished within the next 15-20 years. Perhaps part of the state's motivation in treating the entire physical space like a piece of trash is to make it so hideously unkept that nobody will fight its demolition. Probably the best outcome, one that balances all these problems, would be to salvage the portion that faces Merrimac St (this is the part that now is DMH — the Lindemann proper as opposed to the other side, which is the Hurley), demo' the rest and redevelop it along with the lot at the corner of Merrimac and Staniford. Reknit the street grid, put in private as well as public housing, commercial space, new DMH offices, and find some other use for the surviving portion — maybe an architectural museum.
 
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Lastly, the state just uses the sidewalks as parking lots. I really dont understand how some firebrand hasn't blasted this insanity through the local papers. It's so not okay.

Yeah no kidding it's infuriating. They even put a curb cut in the new bike lane so cars could continue parking on the Cambridge St. sidewalk.

Probably the best outcome, one that balances all these problems, would be to salvage the portion that faces Merrimac St (this is the part that now is DMH — the Lindemann proper as opposed to the other side, which is the Hurley), demo' the rest and redevelop it along with the lot at the corner of Merrimac and Staniford. Reknit the street grid, put in private as well as public housing, commercial space, new DMH offices, and find some other use for the surviving portion — maybe an architectural museum.

Agreed. The 'frog face' facade deserves a second life. The rest, maybe not so much...
 
This is by far my favorite building on Boston but you are right, it just doesn't work very well. Unlike City Hall where you could infill the plaza that would hide/accentuate that building, the GCS can't go anywhere. If fills up its super block too much so there is nothing you can add to the edges to make it more pleasant. Walking around it feels like walking around an old castle that was converted into a jail. There certainly are more successful parts of the building, the corners with the curved staircases, but these are lost by the current needs of the users.

I would love to see the more interesting aspects saved and incorporated into a larger redevelopment. It's almost a shame the entire complex wasn't finished because then you'd have more flexibility. As it stands now you almost have to tear down parts of it.
 
This is by far my favorite building on Boston but you are right, it just doesn't work very well. Unlike City Hall where you could infill the plaza that would hide/accentuate that building, the GCS can't go anywhere. If fills up its super block too much so there is nothing you can add to the edges to make it more pleasant.

Bull. Carney it. Glass it in & place a new steel & glass pavilion at the corner of Stanford & Merrimack. Gut swaths of the inside down to the concrete and turn it into an architecture museum.
 
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Yeah maybe. I think the several us here agree that large parts of it deserve the 'carney library' treatment, yes.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that one of the major places where me might find ourselves dissagreeing is whether the staniford st facade should stay itnact as a 'great wall' or whether you can / should make a cut in part of it to break up the superblock

...e.g. by connecting to cardinal oconnel way - i know that's not much of a street at the moment, but there historically was a street footprint that connected to here from the north side of Bowdoin Sq....on that note any high-quality path forward here needs to improve the integrity of Bowdoin Sq. and also of the Staniford / Merrimac / Causeway bowtie (Bill Russel Sq.?)
 
I work in the Lindemann. I've made it a point to explore this building inside and out and I've grown to love it (from an aesthetic standpoint) for its quirks and hate it from a pedestrian standpoint on any of the surrounding streets- except maybe Cambridge because the facade is smaller on that side than on any other- it's the least offensive of the 4.

I don't know how you "fix" it. It's a super block and aside from tearing a canyon halfway through to break it up a bit (potentially a straight line from Bullfinch PL to the joint where Lindemann and Hurley meet? You can see what I'm talking about on Google Maps- Lindemann is the black roof). But it would be a lot more appealing if it was in better repair. Chain link fences and crumbling concrete don't help.

If people are interested, I'll take and share some interior shots of some of the more interesting spaces. I'm still waiting for the right time to ask DCAMM or facilities folks if I can get up on the roof or go into some of the unoccupied spaces.

This is the view from my office:
window%20view_zpsiu8x4b1b.jpg


The light is much better in the AM (I just snapped this a few minutes ago for this thread). That space down there is used MAYBE once or twice per year for events (there's no easy way to access it without traipsing through other offices).
 
If people are interested, I'll take and share some interior shots of some of the more interesting spaces. I'm still waiting for the right time to ask DCAMM or facilities folks if I can get up on the roof or go into some of the unoccupied spaces.

Please do.
 
It's like being trapped in an M.C. Escher drawing...

I would love for them to find a way to redevelop parts of this parcel, while preserving other parts and improving pedestrian experience/walking routes
 
Glass it in & place a new steel & glass pavilion at the corner of Stanford & Merrimack. Gut swaths of the inside down to the concrete and turn it into an architecture museum.

I totally agree but what about the other sides? Even if you do that it is still a hostile landscraper. Keep the north building (name?) and blow a whole in the middle one to break up the streetscape.
 
I totally agree but what about the other sides? Even if you do that it is still a hostile landscraper. Keep the north building (name?) and blow a whole in the middle one to break up the streetscape.

Cutting a hole in the middle one is my inclination too.
 
According to urban legend (read: Post 21 of this thread), Rudolph designed the building inside & out to mimic the chaotic minds of the mentally ill people it was serving. Fucked up, plain & simple. Knowing Rudolph, I wouldn't put it past him.

Wow. The man's intense.
 
FWIW, this site falls within the FAA 825' space on the map from the 115 Winthrop thread, is right next to the Bowdoin Blue Line station, about a block to North Station, in very close proximity to the Gov't Center garage development, and closer to Mass General than Kendall Square. If you were looking for a place to put a very tall building, you could do worse. If the state sold this site to a developer as in the cases of Volpe or 115 Winthrop it could be a win.
 
Wow. The man's intense.

It's an intense account, but it's fairly over-dramatic and flat out wrong in some instances. For starters, the chapel wasn't closed because of a suicide (nothing of the sort ever took place in that chapel), it was closed because of constant leaking and lack of resources/will to fix it.

Also, I have no idea where this comes from:
"With bedraggled inmates dragging their feet along dismal grey halls, this building is a notorious example of architecture’s power to agitate, confuse and fatally overwhelm."

There are no "inmates" at the Lindemann. Nobody is kept here involuntarily. There are a few shelters and mental health services in the building (as well as administrative offices), but it's not an inpatient facility. And the biggest complaint about the building is the state of repair- I've yet to hear a single instance of the architecture agitating, confusing, or overwhelming anyone (except new hires).

Finally, I'm not sure that the catwalk over the Plaza Level lobby was ever not "glazed." It's fully integrated into the interior of the building. I could be wrong, but I can't imagine it not being enclosed. Here's the catwalk in question today:

catwalk_zpsqsab2rk0.jpg
 
It's an intense account, but it's fairly over-dramatic and flat out wrong in some instances. For starters, the chapel wasn't closed because of a suicide (nothing of the sort ever took place in that chapel), it was closed because of constant leaking and lack of resources/will to fix it.

Also, I have no idea where this comes from:
"With bedraggled inmates dragging their feet along dismal grey halls, this building is a notorious example of architecture’s power to agitate, confuse and fatally overwhelm."

There are no "inmates" at the Lindemann. Nobody is kept here involuntarily. There are a few shelters and mental health services in the building (as well as administrative offices), but it's not an inpatient facility. And the biggest complaint about the building is the state of repair- I've yet to hear a single instance of the architecture agitating, confusing, or overwhelming anyone (except new hires).

I agree that the article is sensational, and that's why I doubt that Rudolph wanted to "mimic madness" in his design... that's just dumb. I'll take your word for it that the chapel was closed due to leaks, but I wouldn't be so sure there were no suicides in there. I've been told that there definitely suicides, plural, in the Lindemann, over the years, and that back in the day it was a very unsafe place for patients and staff.

It hasn't been that many years since Lindemann ceased to be a state hospital. No, people civilly committed aren't called "inmates" but there used to be plenty of people involuntarily admitted there... maybe late nineties or even more recently that the last inpatients were transferred elsewhere. So indeed for much of the building's existence it was a full inpatient state hospital.

There's two DMH homeless shelters and 2-3 group homes there now, so there are still fair number of people who sleep there every night, probably between 50-70 total... for the most part, particularly some of the group homes, these are some folks whom one might certainly call "bedraggled", +/- "dragging their feet" — but that's due to the unfortunate and chronic sequelae of schizophrenia, substance/alcohol use and side effects of antipsychotics, not to the architecture.
 
fun fact: this was the building used to house all the BPD and IA folks in 'the departed.' maybe someone's already mentioned that way back on earlier pages, but i'm too lazy to look.
 
Bull. Carney it. Glass it in & place a new steel & glass pavilion at the corner of Stanford & Merrimack. Gut swaths of the inside down to the concrete and turn it into an architecture museum.

Boston has needed an architecture museum for so long.

Also it's an unwritten rule that every architecture or design facility must be housed in a brutalist building.

Examples:
Wurster Hall
Harvard Architecture School
Barcelona Design Museum

And soon:
Boston Museum Of Architecture
 
I agree that the article is sensational, and that's why I doubt that Rudolph wanted to "mimic madness" in his design... that's just dumb. I'll take your word for it that the chapel was closed due to leaks, but I wouldn't be so sure there were no suicides in there. I've been told that there definitely suicides, plural, in the Lindemann, over the years, and that back in the day it was a very unsafe place for patients and staff.

Unfortunately, suicides aren't uncommon at any psychiatric hospital. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there were suicides in the decades the Lindemann was used as a state hospital either (though I don't know of anything specifically). But a dramatic suicide on the alter in the chapel absolutely never took place. That's the type of sensationalism that people eat up when it comes to people with mental illness (think of every haunted house theme ever); even though it's rarely true.

It hasn't been that many years since Lindemann ceased to be a state hospital. No, people civilly committed aren't called "inmates" but there used to be plenty of people involuntarily admitted there... maybe late nineties or even more recently that the last inpatients were transferred elsewhere. So indeed for much of the building's existence it was a full inpatient state hospital.

This is true. But it hasn't been an active, acute inpatient facility since long before this article was written.

these are some folks whom one might certainly call "bedraggled", +/- "dragging their feet" — but that's due to the unfortunate and chronic sequelae of schizophrenia, substance/alcohol use and side effects of antipsychotics, not to the architecture.

The bolded is accurate. I don't know that I've met anyone I'd call "bedraggled" in the building; but regardless, it has nothing to do with the architecture and that's my point. That's the inherent problem I have with the article. It seems to latch onto some of the most Halloweeny stereotypes of the mental illness/the mentally ill and pin some the responsibility for the perceived challenges these individuals face on the architecture of the building. It even makes some pretty bold claims (i.e. suicide in the chapel) without providing any sources to substantiate those claims. It's a fascinating building and it's fascinating without any of the dramatic tales of the mentally ill.

Anyway, one of my favorite places in the building- the corridor that doesn't seem to end:
corridor_zpsqhlvy0jo.jpg
 
fun fact: this was the building used to house all the BPD and IA folks in 'the departed.' maybe someone's already mentioned that way back on earlier pages, but i'm too lazy to look.

Yes it is. And if you think it's the perfect place to film a horror movie, you're not alone. Cadaver filmed in the Lindemann and Hurley earlier this year (it's the morgue in the film) and is due out next year. The film crew looked at the chapel (this is the only time I've actually seen the chapel), but didn't end up finding a use for it. Other parts of both buildings were used over the course of a week or so.
 

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