Shreve, Crump & Low Redevelopment | 334-364 Boylston Street | Back Bay

Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I guess the sketch is kind of gauzy to hide the entrance to the underground 150 space parking garage.

Assuming the Shreve facade is demolished, I wonder if somebody will try saving and recycling some of the architectural elements.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

What a shame! A series of human scaled buildings in a block being subsumed by a repeating facade theme. I'm sorry, I think this move is a mistake, making yet another block of Boylston St. into a monolith.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

nico said:
Is there any precedent for the facade of a building being preserved for use in another building?
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I believe Paul Rudolph did this in some interior spaces (including his office) his oft-reviled Art + Architecture Building at Yale. His First and Second Church on Marlborough Street is another example, but it may qualify as a preserved architectural fragment of the earlier structure that burned.

Padre Mike said:
What a shame! A series of human scaled buildings in a block being subsumed by a repeating facade theme.
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Uh-huh.

And it's every bit as boring and craftless as I expected it to be. Pelli's slipping.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

After reading the article, I was excited to see what a "delicate", "modern contextual", "very Bostonian" building by Pelli would look like...one word: ugh! Where's the "delicate"??? Where's the "very Bostonian"??? To replace the craftsmanship and exuberance of the Shreve building with this thing would be a crime. Call out the Nimbys! I may join 'em for this one.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I'd certainly prefer to keep Shreve. I'm not nearly as attached to the other buildings on the site.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Hotel Commenwealth III
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I got really excited reading the article. And then I saw the rendering. I like what's there much better. This is just a spruced up box, with a fancy interior design job.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Hopefully, this is merely a concept.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

i think that it is a classy improvement to the existing
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

More of the blandification of Boston. The rendering has the feel of a denser Denver. Or Dallas. Or anywhere.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I think this building should be preserved and agree with many of the those who've posted above. It's a grace to its site and an important piece of the fabric surrounding the Public Garden. I don't understand how the Boston Landmark Commission can recommend that pile of bricks on Somerset Street be given landmark status and then turn their back on this gem. It really makes me wonder if the BLC is merely a tool of the influential -- to prevent development when it is in their interest, as in the MDC building; or to streamline development for you, like when your last name is Druker.

If this building meets the wrecking ball the preservationist movement in this city is a worthless joke.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I don't believe that the MDC building was given landmark status; are you sure about this?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Landmark status was the recommendation of the BLC. See this thread.

Or read the full report here.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I re-read the thread and am a little confused now, because it sounds like they first recommended landmarking it, and then withdrew the recommendation.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Looks like the 1970's redone brick facade in the middle of the block (to the immediate right of the proposed building) is remaining, along with the rest of the block. How ironic to destroy a perfectly good piece of architecture like Shreve's and leave that hideous brick pile.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Is any part of the Shreve building currently leased?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

This is so ridiculous. Why? Why must we have this shit-ass beurocracy making decisions for us?

The rendering is horrendous. It looks like it would fit anywhere. The interior is seen by few, it won't matter as much to the final product. The exterior is seen by millions each day. Druker, millions of potential dollars in rent. Make a good impression. Not a shitty, boring, bland building that could have come out of a suburban architecture firm's annual design catalog.

Rant over.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

briv said:
If this building meets the wrecking ball the preservationist movement in this city is a worthless joke.
Click to expand...

Very true. It will basically be saying that the NIMBYs don't care at all about preserving historic buildings, they just don't want any tall buildings to be built anywhere in the city. If people are honestly making a fuss about that Randolph building downtown being demolished, but no one is making a fuss about this, then it ruins all credibility that they may have. This is a beauty being replaced by a beast.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

So the only buildings worth saving are the ones you all deem "worthy"?
 
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