This is a real downer. The original design could have opened doors toward some acceptance innovative architecture. I wasn't that in love with the design, but if it had been pushed through in the face of reactionary NIMBY griping, it could have proven that contemporary design isn't doomed to always fail in Boston.
Instead, the new building looks like something out of a Norwood industrial park, or something along 128 in Burlington. I'd prefer the vacant lot to stick around until somebody with some force of will can push through a worthy design rather than the same old worst case scenario of compromise.
Here's two examples of innovative blending and improving upon an old structure: New York's Hearst Building (
http://www.hearst.com/tower/artist/index.html?i=2) and the new home of the Hamburg Philharmonic (
http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature0223_03x.jpg). With Boston's huge number of old buildings, its need to expand and create new space, and its (correct) desire to preserve the old structures, this symbiosis of old and new seems ideally suited for the city. ... And yet we wind up with Rt. 128 in Chinatown time and again.
What is it about Boston NIMBYs (and pusillanimous city development boards) that compels them to force the least offensive lowest common denominator on everyone when outstanding architecture is always at their fingertips?