The Art of Boston's Modern Architecture

[Ron Newman]

Carpenter Center at Harvard is Le Corbusier's only US building.

 

[InTheHood]

There's a thread of modernist establishment elitism in this thread that bothers me.

The premise seems to be: a building can only be deemed "art" if designed by an internationally famous architect accepted as part of the canon by old-school modernists.

The unspoken corrolary seems to be that it's difficult to obtain the status of "art" and actually create a building that is halfway functional - some on this list have huge issues, and even the best (Hancock at least generally works as an office building) have some problems (as anyone who has tried to walk past it on a brisk January evening can attest). Indeed, dysfunction seems to be worn as a badge of honor, and certainly seems to have helped Gehry's work gain admission to the canon. Buildings like 111 Huntington and Rowe's Wharf seem to suffer a bit in comparison, because they are generally functional and not actively loathed by the philistines who walk by them. Not to mention, they were designed by individuals who worked for corporate partnerships. The credibility of buildings as art is enhanced if they can be associated clearly with a single individual, ideally a quirky extrovert who dresses funny and/or speaks with an accent.

The Carpenter Center brings the point to the fore. Never mind that it is hostile to the street and that it doesn't function terribly well as an arts center. Never mind that it was constructed with materials that have aged poorly. Never mind that it is sited in a fashion that makes it difficult to take in, visually, or that it lacks many (any?) of the characteristics of monumentality. Never mind that the massing and detailing isn't materially different from that of a host of depressing, workaday concrete sixties structures that litter Boston and every other American city. If the architect was Joe Schmuck, we wouldn't even notice it, but it's by Corbu, dammit, so it's ART! Books and articles have been written about it, students study it, it's even earned a puppet show recounting its history.

The emperor has no clothes, folks. I'm not voting, but I hereby nominate the Congress Street Garage (pre-alterations) for inclusion on this list. Compared to the Carpenter Center, it's similarly hostile to the street, uses substantially similar crumbling materials, and offers a more pure realization of the ramp and "cascade of open spaces" for which Carpenter is famous - especially true if you park on the far end. And it's FAR more monumental. As a bonus, it had all sorts of structural issues, like the Stata Center, its interior is dark and gloomy, like City Hall, and at least at one point it had a useless walled-off staircase, like the Hurley building. If we could only establish that the garage was worked up by Corbu prior to his death, it would not just be on this list, but on the top of it.

 

[ablarc]

The premise seems to be: a building can only be deemed "art" if designed by an internationally famous architect accepted as part of the canon by old-school modernists.

That's not the premise, though you can be forgiven for thinking it is; most of the architects who designed these buildings are indeed internationally famous. If they designed great buildings, you'd expect them to be so.

I used to be wakened daily in the pitch black night by the crowing of a rooster. Shortly after, the dawn's early light would seep into the sky. If I were a Martian just arrived, I could be forgiven for thinking the cock's crow caused the sun to rise. Actually, it was the imminent rising of the sun that caused the damned bird to make his racket.

Just so: the architects in question are internationally famous because their work has caught people's fancy. Kallmann and McKinnell were complete unknowns when they won the City Hall competition. It made them famous.

Internationally famous.


(Your other points are mostly valid, except that architects are more often introverts than extroverts. )

 

[ablarc]

Hauser Hall:

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

Actually, from looking at the list one could conclude that all it takes to be a great architect is to play the trick of importing an alien style into a new environment. That's what City Hall, the Hurley Building, Carpenter Center, Stata Center, Hancock Tower, Christian Science Center, and the Federal Reserve Bank all do. It's also what Bulfinch did with Federal style and Richardson did with Romanesque. I don't think that is sufficient. What is missing is that the ideas you import must continue to be influential. On that score, Bulfinch and Richardson are the geniuses, the rest not.

 

[ablarc]

Actually, from looking at the list one could conclude that all it takes to be a great architect is to play the trick of importing an alien style into a new environment. That's what City Hall, the Hurley Building, Carpenter Center, Stata Center, Hancock Tower, Christian Science Center, and the Federal Reserve Bank all do. It's also what Bulfinch did with Federal style and Richardson did with Romanesque.

That's a pretty fair assessment. By definition, genius always ploughs new ground, never just affirms the status quo. That's maybe why Christian Science and Rowe's Wharf are lesser --despite their considerable virtues. Seen in plan drawings, they could both date from Beaux-Arts times.

I don't think that is sufficient. What is missing is that the ideas you import must continue to be influential. On that score, Bulfinch and Richardson are the geniuses, the rest not.

This is where you lose me. I can't see the difference between your heroes and villains. Richardson's influence today extends at most to the arch on Hauser; and Bulfinch...

Hancock, City Hall and the others are at least as great an influence on today's architecture.

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

I've been meaning to do a post on this. Basically, art (and life) proceeds through two processes: selection and replication. Cultures are idea copy-chains. (Under "idea" I include beliefs, behaviors, art, and morals.) Over time, ideas are copied, sometimes altered, and then passed down through generations. In this way it makes sense to speak of "Western culture" despite the fact that what today constitutes Western culture is very different from any other historical period. Western culture is a copy-chain descending from the Greeks, and even though what we call Western culture today is very different from the beliefs, morals, art, and behavior of the Greeks, our ideas originated from them and have been copied and modified through the various historical eras of the Romans, Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the Enlightenment in a chain leading back to them. For example, the cornices that grace buildings today are descended from those of Greek Temples. The chains do branch however (sorry for the mixed metaphor). And although, say, American culture and French culture are very different, they both are branches of the tree that started with the Greeks and are thus both part of the Western heritage. (I am aware that the Greeks also inherited the ideas they revolutionarily altered.) To have a culture is to have your ideas, beliefs, arts, and morals be the latest link in a copy-chain and to acknowledge that your identity is the result of this chain.
For example, scientific ?progress? is the result of altering our received ideas about the nature of the world. Ideas are tested and if found wanting altered before being passed on to be replicated to other scientists and the general public. The altered scientific ideas are ?better? than the existing ones if they offer a better explanation for the nature of the universe. What exactly makes a scientific explanation better than a competing explanation is a much debated topic in the philosophy of science. Often scientists can not decide between competing theories for decades until some new piece of evidence becomes available.

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. 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. 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. Any artist can throw paint of a canvas in a unique pattern, or put pieces of cloth together in a unique garment, or put bricks together in a unique way, but none of this constitutes originality which always builds upon a foundation of existing ideas, and they never succeed in having their ideas replicated. This is why modern architecture's dismissal of historical motifs is foolish since there is no transcending history, you can only honor it or end up producing a self-hating anti-architecture.

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. But even in these cases it would be wrong to say that there is true originality (despite the pretensions of artists). But all such originality is built on the foundation of the existing ideas that are examined, altered, and then replicated. Even artistic geniuses like Picasso or Le Corbusier who produced radically original architecture that was a drastic departure from the existing styles, and managed to become wildly influential and have his ideas widely replicated, started out by copying existing ideas and then altering them (in his case it was existing concrete military bunkers that served as inspiration). Who would have thought that concrete bunkers would be the source of the great and influential architecture? It is often stunning in hindsight to find out which ideas are those that burst onto ?the scene? and become widely replicated after struggling for ages in anonymity like the mammals existing in the times of the dinosaurs.

Anyway, all of the brick buildings that continue to be built in Boston are descendents of Bulfinch, and Richardson's ideas are common as well. On the other hand, Brutalism has all but gone extinct (but may just be lying dormant waiting to bloom again).

 

[ablarc]

Four recent decades of Modernism have overlaid a jabberwock of too-divergent monuments upon the city.

By contrast, two decades of Beaux-Arts monuments left us with an overlay of harmony.


The ten best monuments of Beaux-Arts Boston:

Public Library (McKim, Mead and White), 1895

South Station (Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge), 1899

Symphony Hall (McKim, Mead and White), 1900

Harvard Stadium (Louis Johnson), 1903

First Church of Christ Scientist (Charles E. Brigham), 1906

Longfellow Bridge (Edwin M. Wheelwright), 1906

Museum of Fine Arts (Guy Lowell), 1909

Copley Plaza Hotel (Henry Hardenbergh), 1912

Custom House Tower (Peabody and Stearns), 1915

MIT Campus (William Bosworth), 1916



Honorable Mentions:

Horticultural Hall (Wheelwright and Haven), 1901

Widener Library (Horace Trumbauer), 1913

City Hall Annex (Edward Graham), 1914



Boston was on the path to the City Beautiful ... but then it stalled.

.

 

[nm88]

I have to admit I'm having a little problem with the question, as fun as lists like this can be. Architecture as art? Hmm... Isn't this where modern architecture (meaning contemporary more than Modern, well, on second thought, maybe not) has perhaps lost its way?

Building as art piece. Camera-ready. Ground-breaking. Put it in the tour books. They'll come out in droves.

Is that what we really want? On every block?

If everything is significant, does significance exist anymore? Does that mean every new thing has to re-write the rule book?

God Forbid.

Why can't we ask our buildings to behave like good citizens? Think about it. Be a good neighbor, don't turn your back on your guests, be what you are, be it the best you can, be yourself in all things, we are all, in our own way, unique, and, lastly, try not to be a show-off. Oh, and play well with others.

Favorites? Yes. Best art? That's like asking "What's beauty?" And that's a whole notha magilla...

 

[ablarc]

^ It's been remarked in numerous threads that a good city needs a majority of background buildings and a minority of standout monuments. There's no disrespect for the former in saying, "let's now discuss the latter."

Talking about poetry doesn't imply that we think shop manuals should be written in verse.

 

[ablarc]

With 35 votes in, the front runners are City Hall 21 votes (60%), Hancock Tower 17 votes (39%) and Christian Science Center 13 votes (37%).

Fair enough. That's also the lineup you'd get if you asked a sampling of tourists to name some modern Boston landmarks.

 

[nm88]

^ It's been remarked in numerous threads that a good city needs a majority of background buildings and a minority of standout monuments. There's no disrespect for the former in saying, "let's now discuss the latter."

Talking about poetry doesn't imply that we think shop manuals should be written in verse.

Point made. That last made me smile.

 

[czsz]

I walk past Hauser Hall nearly every day and don't think it deserves to be on this list. Gropius' complex to its rear is much more significant. And maybe I passed this by scrolling through the thread, but what of the MIT and Harvard Business chapels?

I have to say I think Rowes Wharf, excepting the monumental arch, is more or less a background building. It provides some nice step-massing that blends the skyline with the brown-toned lowrise theme of 19th century Boston - and in doing so, doesn't really assert itself.

 

[ablarc]

^ Yes, the MIT Chapel would have been a better choice.

 

[Pierce]

I'm an infrequent poster who voted for City Hall, Carpenter, and Stata. After the assertion that this list is reflective of a general bias towards big name modernists, I'm curious what people here think about lesser renowned modernist works in the area. I've always loved the North End Library designed by Carl Koch-- a great reading space that seems to disappear despite its rather freakish low profile. As an urban move it leaves me wanting something taller, but I like how it carves out light for the atrium. Though the recent landscape renovation is horrific. I'm also intrigued by the Fidelity Building at Franklin and Congress, the Design Research Building on Brattle Street in Cambridge (TAC?), moments of the Castle Square Apartments complex, and a few random, nameless [to me] buildings in the south end and cambridge that I only remember exist every couple of months.

 

[ablarc]

I'm curious what people here think about lesser renowned modernist works in the area. I've always loved the North End Library designed by Carl Koch...

That one's an engaging little sleeper. But as you say, "lesser" --and not just in its architect's renown. Its painting equivalent might be a Fantin-Latour or Delaunay: solid accomplishment but not ambitious enough to be first rank.

Though the recent landscape renovation is horrific.

Sorry to hear that; I often thought the philistines would eventually ruin this one.

I'm also intrigued by the Fidelity Building at Franklin and Congress

This one appears (rather too frequently for some) in the "Boston in the Seventies" thread, post #42.

...the Design Research Building on Brattle Street in Cambridge (TAC?)

A special favorite of mine too. Surprised this one hasn't already been ruined also; ADA will eventually do it in. BTW, it's by Benjamin Thompson, who, it's true, once worked for TAC, but designed this building after he started his own firm. He also founded and owned Design Research and turned Quincy Market from butchery to Festival Marketplacehood.

...moments of the Castle Square Apartments complex...

"Moments" at best; the overall complex is hard to like.

 

[ablarc]

I realize it's just message board but I didn't vote simply because I'm not familiar with a few of the buildings on the list. Didn't seem fair. I could vote based on photos but I think experiencing buildings like these in person give a vastly different impression than clicking thru a flickr set.

Aw, g'wan; go ahead and vote. Worst that can happen is you might overlook some building that you'd only seen in a photo (Hauser?). A small unfairness --and to a building, at that.

But depriving us livin', breathin' human bein's of your opinion, now I ask you: is that fair?

 

[statler]

Fine, fine, fine.

I followed the pack. CH, Hancock and CSC.

I was tempted to vote for Rowe's Wharf because it is my clear favorite on that list, but I don't think that is what you were looking for.

My question is this. Is there a proper ratio How can you tell if a lot is right for a background building or a piece of art (sight lines)?

 

[CDubs]

I'm curious what people here think about lesser renowned modernist works in the area.

I've always had a thing for the Fiduciary Trust Building in the Financial District, it's like a giant black gemstone. There must be other buildings out there like it, but I've never seen one. Walking next to it and looking up at its underside is quite a feeling!

As well as 99 High Street. It's whiteness among all of the grays and darker buildings in the area is very striking to me, especially at night, and I like the honeycombish look of the exterior.

Though I'm not certain that these are both considered modernist. Are they?

 

[ablarc]

Though I'm not certain that these are both considered modernist. Are they?

Yep. One way or another, almost everything built since the start of the Fifties fits into that broad category. An exception might be the small condo building recently proposed for Commonwealth Avenue, and another is Stern's building for the Harvard Business School.