Architecture Apocalypse: Coming to a theater near you.
Paul Rudolph's Government Services Center
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Architecture Apocalypse: Coming to a theater near you.
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.
This is true. But it hasn't been an active, acute inpatient facility since long before this article was written.
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:
I just saw your reply now, apropos of the brutalism thread. Thanks for the pic - where's that passage? I don't want to hijack the thread entirely but have to respond somewhat to some of this.
-Not all psych units are created equally safe. DMH has always taken the sickest people. The inpatient psych units back in the 1970s and 1980s especially were notoriously unsafe and understaffed. I know this personally from many people who worked there in those years. Agitation and corduroy concrete also don't mix well (now they've plastered over some of the walls, at least). Also, the final years of inpatient treatment here were forensic cases, which tend to be more high risk, violent, etc.
-Do you actually know for certain that nobody killed themselves in the chapel? It doesn't seem unlikely at all, and when I worked there, staff talked about it as fact all the time. I'm not saying it isn't lore, because it could be, but it's not improbable at all.
-Without any sensationalism at all, and without any pejorative sense at all, there are plenty of people here who meet the very definition of "bedraggled". It's a synonym for "disheveled"... poor attention to self care is one of the classic negative symptoms of schizophrenia. But it does irritate me when "mental patients" are used as an effect to make a place "spooky". Not cool.
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Someone pointed out to me the other day how amazing it is that the utter hostility of the civil workers pans out toward this building in the form of parking all over the property, total lack of maintenance to the exterior, and the chain link fences. It's pretty unbelievable. He was saying that he sees it as a symbolic "fuck you" of the working class civil service of Boston against the elitism of "high" architecture, Ed Logue, suburban theorists, etc. At any rate it's the only example I know of where such horrendous care is done for a public building.
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Beton Brut
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The anger and hatred that this building and City Hall inspire in some folks has become an abiding fascination. I first visited both buildings as a child, from that moment, I was hooked. In the interest of full disclosure, both buildings were relatively new.
Only in Boston, a city where our fortunes are so closely tied to academia, would the sentiments you described so vividly above take firm root. I'd also suggest that similar sentiments prevail among the the facilities staffs responsible for caring for public housing.
Beton Brut
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^ I agree! And we'd all do well (in matters far removed from architecture and urban planning) to consider the many factors that inform and shape our opinions...
It's one thing to dislike or react against something. Understanding the root cause of our reaction is something else. And in consideration of matters of art and aesthetics, a further consideration of the creator's intentions and goals makes us wiser, and more discerning creatures.
I'm never gonna get down to Dubstep, but I know it finds its origins in a lot of music that really mattered to me during my misspent youth.
Regarding the cited examples of hard modernism on the other thread, I found Brad's observation quite apt:
It's one thing to dislike or react against something. Understanding the root cause of our reaction is something else. And in consideration of matters of art and aesthetics, a further consideration of the creator's intentions and goals makes us wiser, and more discerning creatures.
I'm never gonna get down to Dubstep, but I know it finds its origins in a lot of music that really mattered to me during my misspent youth.
Regarding the cited examples of hard modernism on the other thread, I found Brad's observation quite apt:
Randomgear
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The GSB is not a pretty building, but portions of it are exceedingly beautiful and it remains one of my favorite buildings in Boston. The Staniford/New Chardon corner facade is disastrous, but like so many buildings of that era could be largely improved with some BPL type renovations to help activate the streetscape.
I have climbed the amazing stairs of the Mental Health Building and was lost in wonder, then I came out to the courtyard... The architectural thoughts behind the exterior public spaces are similar to many brutally heroic buildings of that time including buildings by The Architects Collaborative where they built exterior spaces that could be used by building users (on nice days) in much the same way as the interior spaces. Exterior spaces that are the same size and configuration as offices, meeting rooms, and classrooms. To some extent, I think the lack of use the exterior spaces have gotten is a failure of the architects to understand work ethic and the need to be seen at your desk (preferably frowning). If your away from your desk outside the building, many people, especially management, will tend believe that you are goofing off. While we now have near universal wi-fi (perhaps not yet at city and state buildings) and can work effectively remote from our offices, management culture still believes that a hardworking office is one that looks busy.
And I think FK4 (civil service fuck you) and Brad Plaid (stripped down Gothic grandeur) hit it on the head with their comments.
I have climbed the amazing stairs of the Mental Health Building and was lost in wonder, then I came out to the courtyard... The architectural thoughts behind the exterior public spaces are similar to many brutally heroic buildings of that time including buildings by The Architects Collaborative where they built exterior spaces that could be used by building users (on nice days) in much the same way as the interior spaces. Exterior spaces that are the same size and configuration as offices, meeting rooms, and classrooms. To some extent, I think the lack of use the exterior spaces have gotten is a failure of the architects to understand work ethic and the need to be seen at your desk (preferably frowning). If your away from your desk outside the building, many people, especially management, will tend believe that you are goofing off. While we now have near universal wi-fi (perhaps not yet at city and state buildings) and can work effectively remote from our offices, management culture still believes that a hardworking office is one that looks busy.
And I think FK4 (civil service fuck you) and Brad Plaid (stripped down Gothic grandeur) hit it on the head with their comments.
To add to this, one factor is that the central rotunda is filled with people selling and smoking K2, a bad (and exploitative) situation that was ignored by the DMH police but finally some measures are being put in place to stop. There are plans this year for a garden in the circular green although we'll see what happens with that.
I also would add that the general absence of life is partly due to the benches all being fenced off on the upper levels, and to the absence of eateries in the area. If portions of the building could be turned into delis and convenience stores, maybe things would change.
And I also agree with Brad's comment. Nailed it.
Beton, not to get too far afield here but your overall sentiment here is one in which I find myself increasingly attuned to: there are many different ways to appreciate almost everything - art, politics, literature, people... For instance, I might have a visceral reaction to something but also recognize the inherent value in that same thing - perhaps I feel as though the thing is something that ought to be appreciated, or has value because of some X, Y or Z property. I find the music comparison apt, since I often will hear a song and appreciate some element of it — good pop/good hooks, or brilliant production, or somethign that was or it truly groundbreaking for its time — but not actually "like" it. For me, my first appreciation for brutalist buildings was like that — more an intellectual appreciation that gave way to a deeper one.
Randomgear
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I apologize if I was unnecessarily harsh with this statement, it surely could have been written far better.
To be fair, architects of the time were trying to create better places for people to work and live and were re-imagining how people could work in a manner not too unlike some of today's remote workforce who work wherever, frequently from social places such as cafes. The fact that a rapidly changing society and workforce didn't change the way they imagined (as quickly as they imagined it would) is less their failure and more so of a workforce failed to understand and use the amazing spaces that were built for them as well as the the buildings owner's failure to program uses for the spaces.
Good point. I'd say that my (and I'm sure many others) opinion of brutalism was tainted by the fact that so many of them were built on ground formerly occupied by beautiful buildings that were destroyed.
For me, something that really makes me appreciate modernism in all its forms was that it very self-consciously tried to forge a truly new vision for the way things would be. And that coincides with my own, personal worldview about that entire time in civilization, where society and culture as a whole placed great faith in the promise of the future. No more of the old, decrepit world order. We were moving to a better place, science promised to revolutionize the way we would live, work and relate to each other. We were headed toward space. Politically, people were fighting for civil rights, women's rights, the great youth movements that swept the globe...
But then, we also bulldozed whole neighborhoods. Altamont, Charles Manson, and STP happened. Nixon was elected. The fire fizzled out. Now, despite the profession of faith in advancement of technology and medical sciences in some corners of society, and despite a widespread acknowledgement of the fact that life without the progress given by the industrial revolution, we really are almost all — as a society — fixated on a level of heavily romanticized interpretation of the past than almost ever before.
And this is true in architecture, too, I think. Take historical preservationism: at its heart, it suggests that we could never possibly achieve something as great as was once achieved in the past. Those stone apartments on South Huntington — they're just crappy tenements by the standards by which they were originally built, and yet everyone would pull together to save them if anyone tried to tear them down. This level of protectionism and resistance to change is on a level I don't think civilization has ever seen. We romanticize the past while we also criticize it as barbaric. So where does that leave us?
Buildings like the Lindemann are truly visionary. What has been built in Boston since the election of Ronald Reagan that one could possibly say that about? Are we totally done with being visionary, or allowing the government to be visionary? I recognize that some of these "visions" were accomplished at great cost to the social fabric of the time... and yet... we seem to have all lost faith in the future and what it can really achieve.
Perhaps some day in my own lifetime the zeitgeist will pull together and forge a 21st century vision that the majority of society can rally behind. But for now, we are quite lost, I think.
Charlie_mta
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I don't think we're all that lost. I like the architecture of today much better than that of the 60's and 70's. The stuff produced today is generally clean, lean and classy; kind of an updated mid-century vibe which is fantastic.
I lived through the 60's, did a lot of the hippy-dippy stuff, and in retrospect it was a mistake more than anything else. I'm 67 now. The country was going through unbelievable turmoil to the point of being ripped apart in the 1960's. There was always the threat of imminent worldwide nuclear annihilation, which I believe fueled a lot of the craziness, along with the bizarre architecture. Yeah, things have calmed down and I'm happy for it. We appreciate the past now instead of being hell-bent on ripping it all down.
I lived through the 60's, did a lot of the hippy-dippy stuff, and in retrospect it was a mistake more than anything else. I'm 67 now. The country was going through unbelievable turmoil to the point of being ripped apart in the 1960's. There was always the threat of imminent worldwide nuclear annihilation, which I believe fueled a lot of the craziness, along with the bizarre architecture. Yeah, things have calmed down and I'm happy for it. We appreciate the past now instead of being hell-bent on ripping it all down.
For me, there are a few reasons why I think this is true:
(1) Buildings of that time period had architectural details that we don't see anymore.
(2) The quality of workmanship in the past seems to have been much better than it is today.
(3) Parking requirements would largely affect what was built in it's place. Building residences with no on-site parking has unforuntately become politically very difficult, despite the fact that much of our historic multi-unit housing that people love has no or very little on-site parking.
(4) Most newer buildings today are larger and have fewer entrances. For some reason, multiple narrow buildings with common walls, each with their own entrances have lost favor to block-long buildings with only one or two entrances. (See Seaport/Ink Block/Fenway/etc.)
So in many ways, once buildings like this are gone, they're gone for good, and what we will get as a replacement will always be different (and in many people's minds, inferior.)
Beton Brut
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This is an accurate sentiment to a point, but may not apply to much of the ill-considered urban renewal that decimated Scollay Square and the West End. Most of the buildings that were lost to the age of government-sponsored urban vandalism were rather utilitarian. The loss was less a matter of architecture, and more a matter of urban vitality that was fueled by the variety (in style and quality) of the built environment. You'd need to visit foreign shores to see a contemporary version of Scollay Square; it'll likely be a place that tour-guides will discourage you from visiting.
@ FK4, thanks for your thoughtful post. This stuck out at me:
This type of critical lens is being increasingly focused on almost every creative endeavor today. This is how we talk about food, cinema, music, and television. But also consider, All in the Family couldn't be broadcast today and Blazing Saddles would get you blacklisted. Our kinder, more evolved society lacks the striving authenticity of my childhood in the (barbaric) 70s. (I know, one man's opinion).
And so, we all seek out authenticity. But gnocchi served to you by a fit, bearded 20-something with an eggbeater tattoo on his forearm isn't particularly authentic (even if it's delicious). Peasant food isn't improved by someone who's attended the Culinary Institute of America.
There are many fine architects working in the idiom you describe today. With that said, too much of what's getting built in Boston tries (and fails, often miserably) to evoke our history through referencing vernacular architecture. The worst offenders are small to medium sized projects in South and East Boston.
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You're right. We need to get back to discussing why Boston doesn't have 2,000' towers!!
And why NIMBYs should goto hell.
Charlie_mta
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There are some newer museum pieces around Harvard Square put up in the last few years that match what you're saying. They try to "fit in" to the historic area, but end up looking like Disneyland aping Harvard. The east end of Cambridge around the MIT area has some newer buildings that are more what I had in mind when i said, "clean, lean and classy; kind of an updated mid-century vibe".
Charlie, I think the new project on Farnsworth in South Boston might fit your description as well, at least as it is rendered. I'm not saying there's nothing that's being built that is worthy of praise, although I think you know that. But just to be clear, I'm saying that I wonder if we have lost something more meaningful and significant then we realize in our surrendering a central uniting trend in vision in all things, including architecture, for an every-viewpoint-counts way of doing things. Being all inclusive and pleasing everyone ends up, in many -- most -- cases, producing mediocrity. Kind of like how de Tocqueville predicted the decimation of manners and politeness in equality-minded societies, if I'm not getting too far afield: every man for himself leaves every man a little dissatisfied. My aged Croatian professor in college used to say that the presence of a unified bent in society, usually represented at the top by some authority-regime, actually sharpened the arts, because the artist was confronted with a very real choice of either bowing down and selling out, or fighting for what he or she believed in... but if the latter, in a less forgiving climate, they had better have their arguments in order if they were going to go against the grain. But I guess that's sort of the same old modernist vs post-modernist old hat. I don't know.