The Art of Boston's Modern Architecture

[tobyjug]

I wish I put Hauser in my vote. Hauser=MacIntosh+Richardson. Please find a gentle hill and build an entire streetscape of Hausers, Glasgow Art Schools and Willow Tea Rooms. I'll bring the opium and absinthe.

 

[ablarc]

^ All under a broad-brimmed Italian hat.

If you combine styles and you know what you're doing, you end up creating a new style for others to copy; Wright did that over and over.

If you combine styles and you don't know what you're doing, you end up with a mud pie.

 

[ablarc]

In art it is even more difficult to determine why certain styles are adopted among all the competing designs and come to be the dominant style of the time. The world is full of art that either gets no attention, or perhaps explodes like an algae bloom in temporary popularity only to disappear and leave no lasting influence.

Postmodernism. Pop Art.

It is the great artists and philosophers who manage to produce new branches of ideas that lay the path to all future ideas. Success in altering the existing ideas requires a great understanding of the existing ideas. It is only through a passionate study of the existing ideas that the proper perspective can be achieved whereby one is in a position to know their strengths and weaknesses, to see what is lacking, and to offer a new way.

Quinlan Terry, Leon Krier.

The world is full of tragicomic ?artists? throwing up new ideas without any real understanding of the existing ideas and without offering any real solutions. Often they make the same error in confusing originality and individuality with uniqueness.

Rem Koolhaas.

This is the nature of originality and individuality: to alter ones received ideas and to have them successfully replicated; the great individuals are those who manage to produce the theories, art, or values that manage to be widely replicated.

Beethoven, Michelangelo, Frank Lloyd Wright.

But even in these cases it would be wrong to say that there is true originality (despite the pretensions of artists).

Frank Lloyd Wright!

 

[unterbau]

It's interesting that Aalto's Baker Dorms didn't make this list, considering it was possibly the most famous piece of modern architecture at the time that it was built. But it definitely has become less and less central to discussions of boston architecture since it's such a subtle building.

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

After that whole rant I neglected to draw the conclusion I meant to. And that is this: everyone has influences, everyone has ancestors, everyone is part of a tradition, and it is impossible to be otherwise. The architectural world has been operating under the theory that genius equals individuality, the way to be an individual is to not have your ideas influenced by outside forces, and the mark of individuality is uniqueness. Allegedly, while at Harvard Gropius discouraged his students from studying art history because he didn't want his students originality "tainted" by outside influence. (Ironically they all produced architecture remarkedly similar.) This has lead to the state of affairs we have today where a skyline is a mishmash of unrelated buildings, where everyone wants to be an iconoclast, where the highest insult is to be "derivative." But this is all wrong and should be abandoned. In the place of the theory of pure, uninfluenced, self-creating creator, needs to be the idea of architect as link in an idea chain. Boston has an architectural heritage that should be appreciated and grown, not fought and refuted.

 

[ablarc]

After 46 votes, over half of board members regard City Hall and the Hancock Building as works of art. Not surprising; but this is: over a third also put the Hurley Building, the Carpenter Center and the Christian Science Center there. Is Brutalism making a comeback?

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

I once had the idea for Brutalism in form, but cover all the concrete surfaces in Roxbury puddingstone. Would be a nice combination of form and matter.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Brutalism is just one of those things that you can learn to appreciate. It's no wonder that a board of people who are into architecture is into Brutalism.

 

[Lrfox]

After 46 votes, over half of board members regard City Hall and the Hancock Building as works of art. Not surprising; but this is: over a third also put the Hurley Building, the Carpenter Center and the Christian Science Center there. Is Brutalism making a comeback?

I was in town this past weekend with a friend from Iowa. We were walking by the administration building for the Christian Science Center and she pointed and said, "is that the ugliest building in Boston?" I didn't say a word, but simply gestured across the street towards the Midtown Hotel, and she just said, "Oh, yeah, that's uglier."

I guess if I had to find a point in that, It seems like if someone has even a tiny understanding of the Brutalist architectural style, they'll appreciate it more. They may not like it, but they'll appreciate it. Earlier, I attempted to explain to her what I liked about City Hall and at the end, she sort of shrugged and said, "oh, I guess I can see that."

The shock of seeing a Brutalist building standing in stark contrast to the other architectural forms in the urban landscape often leads to dislike for the style to those with a completely untrained eye. But even those with a minimal understanding (which is where I consider myself) can at the very least respect, if not appreciate the style. I'll bet that most of those who "appreciate" Brutalism, still don't love it.

 

[statler]

I'll bet that most of those who "appreciate" Brutalism, still don't love it.

Yup.

 

[tobyjug]

It's the parking garages that killed public appreciation of brutalism. Think Red Line: Alewife, Quincy Center, Quincy Adams ....

 

[ablarc]

^ True enough. A Brutalist parking garage is especially brutal.

Parking garages should emulate the MotorMart.

 

[Beton Brut]

I wouldn't be holding my end up of the bargain if didn't post something here...

Is Brutalism making a comeback?

Maybe? Concrete lends itself to the free forms that wind up in the pages of Architectural Record these days. And there is a resurgent interest in Rudolph. Steven Holl, Antoin Predock, Zaha Hadid and Thom Mayne all like their concrete, and aspects of their work read "Brutalist," but I'm not sure that any of them would affix the label to their work. Indeed, Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library, a prismatic fishnet of glass and space-frame, feels Brutalist.

I once had the idea for Brutalism in form, but cover all the concrete surfaces in Roxbury puddingstone. Would be a nice combination of form and matter.

An interesting idea that I hope is incorporated into new work. There's a problem with recladding: Brutalism is about the material doing what it's supposed to do, laid bare of any frosting of cladding materials or even paint. Our friend justin once astutely recognized that concrete "records its own history" by taking on the grain of the wood forms used in construction. Rudolph, Lautner, Saarinen, and others took advantage of this quality.

It's no wonder that a board of people who are into architecture is into Brutalism.

Quoted for truth.

I didn't say a word, but simply gestured across the street towards the Midtown Hotel, and she just said, "Oh, yeah, that's uglier."

I guess if I had to find a point in that, It seems like if someone has even a tiny understanding of the Brutalist architectural style, they'll appreciate it more.

Great story! There are more examples of bad Brutalism than good. Anything that becomes formulaic, likely turns bad. ablarc has used the example of 12-tone music by way of analogy.

 

[ablarc]

Steven Holl, Antoin Predock, Zaha Hadid and Thom Mayne all like their concrete, and aspects of their work read "Brutalist," but I'm not sure that any of them would affix the label to their work. Indeed, Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library, a prismatic fishnet of glass and space-frame, feels Brutalist.

They share with Brutalism a disdain for traditional urban virtues, but they add to that an amorphousness of form --not a brutalist shortcoming -- that makes them extremely difficult to like.

At least Brutalism always recognized gravity --indeed made a fetish of it for formal reasons-- while these recent superstars pretend gravity doesn't exist. Hadid's buildings start out as wisps of smoke.

 

[ablarc]

Now that an even fifty forumers have voted, only one building has cracked the 50% barrier; the winner is City Hall, which 58% of forumers think is a modern work of art. It's ironic that simultaneously another thread in this section refers to it as the world's Number One Greatest Eyesore.

Clearly art doesn't have to appeal to everyone, but I'm much more likely to be enlightened by BetonBrut's opinions on Sibelius and Lautner than those of someone who holds these folks in contempt.