Was it?
When was it retrofitted to a courthouse?
The John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse (POCH) was constructed in downtown Boston in 1931-1933 as a monumental expression of the city's regional and national stature. It replaced a handsome but overcrowded Second Empire style Post Office and Sub-Treasury Building that had occupied the site on Post Office Square since the early 1870s. Design of the replacement building resulted from an unusual collaboration between the Supervising Architect of the Treasury's office and the noted private architectural firm of Cram & Ferguson. Government architects provided the general interior layout, which was based on their standardized plans, while Cram & Ferguson designed the exterior and the primary interior spaces. Along with the United Shoe Machinery Corporation Building (1928), the Batterymarch Building (1927), and the State Street Bank & Trust Company Building (1929), it is one of the finest Art Deco style buildings constructed in downtown Boston in the 1920s and 1930s. Its history embodies the strength of Boston's community in the early to mid-20th century, and the inception of federal relief programs developed in the 1930s to counteract the effect of the Great Depression.
These four buildings had a major and unprecedented impact on the center city as their bulk loomed above all predecessors to pierce Boston's skyline. They served as urban beacons, providing orientation for both pedestrians and motorists. All but the slightly earlier Batterymarch Building responded to a 1928 zoning amendment that allowed buildings to rise above 155 feet if they followed defined setback rules. This distinctive "ziggurat" massing, fostered by zoning laws in Boston and other large cities around the country, was a hallmark of the Art Deco style.
Although Art Deco was in vogue at the time, its choice for the POCH was unusual for several reasons. First, it was seldom used for Federal buildings, most of which were designed in a spare interpretation of the Classical Revival style. In addition, Boston was known as a conservative city, one which generally favored classically oriented approaches to architectural design rather than experimentation with modern ideas. Finally, Ralph Adams Cram, who produced the exterior design, was a vocal critic of modern architecture whose published diatribes reached a national audience. According to Charles G. Loring, writing about the POCH in the November, 1933, issue of AMERICAN ARCHITECT, Cram chose the Art Deco style because Gothic trappings on such a large building would have been a sham, and a false interpretation of the style he admired so much. Whatever Cram's rationale, the resulting design was praised for its response to the dense urban environment that formed its context.
Linky
http://w3.gsa.gov/web/p/interaia_sa...940edda3cb0a7532852565d900539f46?OpenDocument
and insofar as the retrofit.
http://www.viridianee.com/mccormick.html
Project Summary
The McCormack office tower is an architectural, Art Deco?era landmark in Boston. Viridian worked closely with Goody Clancy Architects and Cosentini Associates, the MEP engineers, to renovate the building into energy-efficient, sustainable offices for the regional EPA. The challenge, embraced by the design team, was to create a model of historically sensitive, environmentally considered rehabilitation
This was all I could find.....