View Boston (Observatory) | Prudential Tower | Back Bay

Roxxma said:
Old pics of the Pru, pre-current mast, always make it look a little incomplete.
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Speaking theoretically, this entire spot of land has been under construction when the tower opened for business back in 1965, close to 55 years of one building or another, all the way back to the main tower itself. Close to 55 years of construction headaches & turmoil, & the thing is STILL not done yet! They'll probably move over to the hotel towers when THIS is done. It never seems to stop. This has gone on much farther than the Big Dig itself! It has been just like a years-long Big- Dig- style project. When will it finally stop?! :eek:
 
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gac108 said:
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If that mess up there qualifies as "aesthetic", then it's an extremely loose interpretation. It's just pure functionality, things that were thrown up there for necessity over the last 60 years. I just think there is a better way, a way to modernize and clean it up. If this is THE building people think of when they think of the Boston skyline, shouldn't we want it to progress over time while preserving the important aesthetic elements?
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I dream that someday they'll plop an open structure like R2D2's on top, but pyramidal instead of round to give the building that classic campanile of St. Mark's silhouette. Keep the current mess since some people like it, but frame it so the crown has a well-defined outline.
 
xec said:
I dream that someday they'll plop an open structure like R2D2's on top, but pyramidal instead of round to give the building that classic campanile of St. Mark's silhouette. Keep the current mess since some people like it, but frame it so the crown has a well-defined outline.
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Yea that is a great idea! There has to be away to arrange the multitude of antennae around the big central one in such a pyramid design, spacing them evenly and even adding fake ones to balance out the design if need be. With some multicolor LED lighting at night, that would be incredible and really retro-modernize the whole building.
 
gac108 said:
Yea that is a great idea! There has to be away to arrange the multitude of antennae around the big central one in such a pyramid design, spacing them evenly and even adding fake ones to balance out the design if need be. With some multicolor LED lighting at night, that would be incredible and really retro-modernize the whole building.
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For what I have in mind you wouldn't need to move antennas or anything. Here's a rough sketch of the idea

bfhZXto.jpg


That's the starting point. Just four beams anchored at the corners and meeting at the tip of the antenna.
Architects and designers would take it from there to flesh out and refine the details.
 
xec said:
For what I have in mind you wouldn't need to move antennas or anything. Here's a rough sketch of the idea

bfhZXto.jpg


That's the starting point. Just four beams anchored at the corners and meeting at the tip of the antenna.
Architects and designers would take it from there to flesh out and refine the details.
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Bruh…that’s…nice…add some lights
 
This project began in the '60's. We've seen the construction of the Southwest Corridor, the Big Dig & we've seen the construction of the 2nd World Trade Center in New York, not to mention the new GLX, yet this 31-acre spot of land is STILL u/c! Will we ever see the end to this nearly 60-year construction project finally?! :unsure:
 
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I still have seen no construction photos of the large SkyDeck entrance lobby by Blue Bottle coffee. Has anyone been there to take photos? Is that under construction?
 
Interesting find. Regardless but related (kinda) I've always found the "it needs to be an architectural element" bit to be arbitrary and dumb. If a building's antenna goes up to 907' (or 940' or whatever) then that building is 907' feet tall. Doesn't matter if the antenna is functional. If anything that makes it infinitely more useful than tacking on a stupid, with-no-actual-purpose-other-than-aesthetics-and-total-architectural-height spire. And, no, that doesn't mean that stuff like the broadcast antennas in Needham should be considered buildings/towers.
 
chrisbrat said:
Interesting find. Regardless but related (kinda) I've always found the "it needs to be an architectural element" bit to be arbitrary and dumb. If a building's antenna goes up to 907' (or 940' or whatever) then that building is 907' feet tall. Doesn't matter if the antenna is functional. If anything that makes it infinitely more useful than tacking on a stupid, with-no-actual-purpose-other-than-aesthetics-and-total-architectural-height spire. And, no, that doesn't mean that stuff like the broadcast antennas in Needham should be considered buildings/towers.
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Neither should count. It's a stick on top of a building. If you broke them off the top and put them on the ground we wouldn't call those spires "buildings" so why should they add to the official height of them? For instance, on the below example I would count the NYTT as just over 800' to the crown, and FCP as 978'. Even crowns are somewhat cheap height, but I'm willing to concede those as architectural exclamation points on top of the buildings. But a stick is just a stick is just a stick.

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