Skanska Office Tower | 380 Stuart Street | Back Bay

[nm88]

I’m all for bold, especially when losing something in the process, worthy or not.

Is this that? Modern? Okay. Bold? Hardly. Consider the variations already going up or on design boards around town. Will this soon look dated as many trends often do?

We’re not Phoenix, we’re Boston.

I love me eye-candy, but can’t we do better?

If we can’t, there’s a price. That is my point. From the start. What we lose – good or bad, it is our neighborhood, our city – and is too often not replaced with value, bold or otherwise. It is simply and only a financial deal. The design process in Boston is broken. IMHO.

A good addition to the Back Bay skyline? Respectfully, I don’t care. What the city looks like from the ocean means nothing to me. I will walk past this building often. It’s the street that matters to me.

 

[KentXie]

Boston was never a city of good architecture. Frankly no other major city in the US really is outside of NYC. Chicago, SF (thanks to their recent additions), and Philly. IMO this is Boston and no I don't think we can do better.

 

[chrisbrat]

Boston was never a city of good architecture.

flame on bro

 

[NoShJFK]

NPC:

Box

bpda.app.box.com

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love it. a tad taller would be nice though

 

[Equilibria]

Boston was never a city of good architecture. Frankly no other major city in the US really is outside of NYC. Chicago, SF (thanks to their recent additions), and Philly. IMO this is Boston and no I don't think we can do better.

If New York's recent Coruscant look is indicative of a "city of good architecture", then I want no part of it.

 

[bigpicture7]

Boston was never a city of good architecture. Frankly no other major city in the US really is outside of NYC. Chicago, SF (thanks to their recent additions), and Philly. IMO this is Boston and no I don't think we can do better.

Tell that to hometowners Charles Bulfinch, William Bosworth, I.M. Pei, Henry Cobb...
This sentiment also tells me you've got little regard for Boston's significance prior to the mid-20th century.
Now I will agree with you that we've churned out far greater than our fair share of total shite architecture since the '60s, but to say there was never any good architecture here?? Try looking at this in your spare time.

 

[Massachoicetts]

Boston was never a city of good architecture. Frankly no other major city in the US really is outside of NYC. Chicago, SF (thanks to their recent additions), and Philly. IMO this is Boston and no I don't think we can do better.

Skyscrapers*

A city does not have to have crazy tall skyscrapers to have good architecture.

 

[type001]

Boston was never a city of good architecture. Frankly no other major city in the US really is outside of NYC. Chicago, SF (thanks to their recent additions), and Philly. IMO this is Boston and no I don't think we can do better.

It raises the question as to why you actually spend time on this forum, but opinions are opinions. That being said, you couldn't be more wrong.

 

[tmac9wr]

Not to pig-pile on Kent, but he probably should have specified high rise architecture, which has never been a huge strong-suit of Boston. We have some very nice towers, but there is also an overwhelming amount of ugly brown boxes from the 70s/80s which tend to dominate the skyline.

 

[jklo]

Not to pig-pile on Kent, but he probably should have specified high rise architecture, which has never been a huge strong-suit of Boston. We have some very nice towers, but there is also an overwhelming amount of ugly brown boxes from the 70s/80s which tend to dominate the skyline.

Don't forget about City Hall. Ah, the joys of brutalism.

You could say that the glass boxes should stay in the Seaport and not Back Bay.

 

[Bananarama]

The good stuff is mostly historical and in Back Bay/South End/North End, etc.
Most of the low and mid-rise buildings from the last 50 years or so are pretty garbage/generic as well, not just bad high-rises. Brutalism is insanely problematic, but at least it's interesting (Boston has arguably the best collection of it in the US, good and bad).

This proposal though is more derivative soulless jengatecture that has a stranglehold over the industry. Everyone's been obsessed with stacking since Herzog & De Meuron's Vitrahaus and 56 Leonard. And it's the easiest operation to illustrate with cartoony arrow-ridden diagrams thanks to BIG.

It's sad because there's a good core group of quality design-focused firms in the city. They don't get enough work over more corporate ones or developers, and Boston doesn't seem to draw many big names from elsewhere.

 

[bigpicture7]

The good stuff is mostly historical and in Back Bay/South End/North End, etc.
Most of the low and mid-rise buildings from the last 50 years or so are pretty garbage/generic as well, not just bad high-rises. Brutalism is insanely problematic, but at least it's interesting (Boston has arguably the best collection of it in the US, good and bad).

This proposal though is more derivative soulless jengatecture that has a stranglehold over the industry. Everyone's been obsessed with stacking since Herzog & De Meuron's Vitrahaus and 56 Leonard. And it's the easiest operation to illustrate with cartoony arrow-ridden diagrams thanks to BIG.

It's sad because there's a good core group of quality design-focused firms in the city. They don't get enough work over more corporate ones or developers, and Boston doesn't seem to draw many big names from elsewhere.

First off, it seems most of the pushback to Kent was his "...never a city of good architecture" statement. The "never" ignores a substantial chunk of Boston history.

The architectural shitting-on we often do on aB is indeed unfair to the "good core group of quality design-focused firms in the city" you mention. But I want to unpack this further. The corporatized architectural mass production we're seeing lately is as much about the developmental oligopolies and old boys networks operating in this city (i.e., minimal incentive to compete via great design) as it is about architecture itself. It's your last point that's oversimplified in my opinion ("Boston doesn't seem to draw many big names from elsewhere"): this is untrue if you look outside the for-profit mass-developer club, such as Harvard's hiring of Renzo Piano for the Art Museums re-do, the new Volpe Center by SOM, several examples at MIT. The special one-offs do indeed get attention.

My point is that if there's a main failing here, it's about how development gets done in Boston. It's superficial to simply say Boston has poor architectural taste.

 

[Smartiro]

This looks very much along the lines of what Skanska built in Cambridge and Seaport - clean, elegant, a bit boring. I like it better than previous one.

 

[Smartiro]

As to the general architectural mediocrity discussion - good stuff is expensive. And the more roadblocks are put in the more expensive it gets.
So only very wealthy can now afford that - and we do have wealthy institutions, but not a whole lot of wealthy companies...

 

[shawn]

Can we agree that for its importance at the time, Boston has relatively few good art deco buildings? Other than the obvious and numerous 60s-70s stuff, I feel our lack of art deco (especially compared to peer cities) is the only major mark against Boston architecture on the whole.

 

[DZH22]

I wish we had more big old buildings like this instead of the largest topping out at 14 floors. I think we actually had a couple bigger ones and they were knocked down for the Pregnant BOA building and 75 State Street respectively. This street in Philadelphia is unbelievably grand and Boston has no single area that can compete. (spin the view, then go visit Philadelphia and walk down this street)

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[Nibbles O’Plenty]

Can we agree that for its importance at the time, Boston has relatively few good art deco buildings? Other than the obvious and numerous 60s-70s stuff, I feel our lack of art deco (especially compared to peer cities) is the only major mark against Boston architecture on the whole.

40 Broad Street had a beautiful Art Deco lobby with all the trimmings. About twenty years ago…it was all replaced…with plain white paneling. This should be criminal!

 

[KentXie]

Not to pig-pile on Kent, but he probably should have specified high rise architecture, which has never been a huge strong-suit of Boston. We have some very nice towers, but there is also an overwhelming amount of ugly brown boxes from the 70s/80s which tend to dominate the skyline.

Sorry yes, to clarify, I meant high-rise architecture and the comment is more to level set with some people here (i.e. put Boston in a slightly better light). In terms of high-rise architecture, we are not at the same level as NYC and Chicago, but most cities aren't and it's hard to hold Boston to a high standard since most cities can't hit that standard anyways. That being said, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be criticisms. I criticized a lot of the mediocre high-rise designs in Boston but you're setting yourself for disappointment if you expect that to change. Thank you for those that were able to read between the line. Sorry to those that wasn't clear.

If New York's recent Coruscant look is indicative of a "city of good architecture", then I want no part of it.

Yeah, I mean you can continue to live in the past but I'm going to appreciate how developers have transformed NYC thanks to immense progress in architecture that allows them to build incredibly tall in a small amount of space.

 

[Equilibria]

Yeah, I mean you can continue to live in the past but I'm going to appreciate how developers have transformed NYC thanks to immense progress in architecture that allows them to build incredibly tall in a small amount of space.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. NYC has ruined its skyline shockingly fast.

 

[DZH22]

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. NYC has ruined its skyline shockingly fast.

There are many other supertalls coming up that will balance the skyline a bit better, but IMO this proposal at 1556' (center right with bulge near the top) will be the classless coup de grace. I don't know if NYC is capable of coming back from this one.