The Kensington | 665 Washington Street | Downtown

Re: Residences at Kensington

kz1000ps said:
Err...maybe I was drunk (and by maybe I mean definitely), but found5dollar didn't you write a post late last night saying this thing was inspired by art deco? I came back here just now all prepared to refute that and write something clever like "I know art deco, and this, sir, is no art deco!"
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in the eternal words of Shaggy, I say unto you, "it wasn't me."

I just wrote a poorly typed statement of how i thought the construction pics were of One Marina Park Drive.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I don't care what you all say, this building looks straight up good from this angle.

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Re: Residences at Kensington

Just what we needed in boston .......... a cardboard box with windows. brilliant
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

What would cause the panels to be discolored like that? Is it permanent?
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

BostonUrbEx said:
Looks incredibly flat and 2 dimensional.
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Wow, so now we can say it is art-deco and also borrowed an effect from the JHT.... Who would have thought? Of course, it comes up mediocre in both comparisons, but the positive thing is it really isn't terrible.

I also think that's probably its best angle. It really helps continue the canyon down Washington Street. (along with MP 1, 2, and 3, Archstone Apts, and even the semi-recent Tufts Medical Center addition and whatever brown building is across the street from that)
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I don't care what you all say, this building looks straight up good from this angle.
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A. Sarcastic
B. Facetious
C. Ironic

I'll guess B - Facetious.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Officejab said:
What would cause the panels to be discolored like that? Is it permanent?
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NU's International Village has the same problem. Ironic that a 28 story wart also has a blemish issue. It'll take 40 years for the rest of the cladding to catch up in weathering and even it all out.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

AmericanFolkLegend said:
A. Sarcastic
B. Facetious
C. Ironic
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D. Serious

I know this is an Internet board about architecture, so I'm hearing the purists complain. Carry on. We need people like you to keep us on the right path.

But for the rest of us, we need a building that: covers up a parking lot, beautifys a not-so-great neighborhood, alleviates the housing crush in Boston, and on the bottom of that list, looks okay.

This building ticks off every single box. The last one? I'll settle for: not hideous and an embarrassment to our city. This is not a terrible building if you give it a chance people, please.

Please give this building the "benefit of the doubt." Come back again to this building with fresh eyes, and with less baggage of erudite expectation. It's not a great building. It's not a Cobb John Hancock. So what.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

The original design was amazing and 10 years later we get this POS.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

JoeBoston1 said:
D. Serious

But for the rest of us, we need a building that: covers up a parking lot, beautifys a not-so-great neighborhood, alleviates the housing crush in Boston, and on the bottom of that list, looks okay.
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Perhaps your time would be better spent writing love letters to the BRA
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

JoeBoston1 said:
But for the rest of us, we need a building that: covers up a parking lot, beautifys a not-so-great neighborhood, alleviates the housing crush in Boston, and on the bottom of that list, looks okay.
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Woahhhh hold on. This was NOT a parking lot. It was the Gaiety Theater, which a group fought tooth and nail to prevent being torn down. They also tore down the Glass Slipper, which was less of a loss. It turned into a gravelly wasteland only after they tore down the theatre in 2003 or so and let the site fester for the better part of the decade. The group even came up with a plan on how to build a vastly more attractive tower while still maintaining the historical integrity of the site and its relation to the neighborhood.

The loss of the Gaiety is part of the reason why this value engineered piece of shit is so especially grating on everyones nerves.

The other reason is that the origional proposal was superior in every way:
kensington1.jpg


I particularly hate it because I watched my home down have historic 200 year old barns and farmhouses demolished to make way for vinyl-clad McMansions, of which this is its kindrid spirit: the McTower.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

davem said:
The loss of the Gaiety is part of the reason why this value engineered piece of shit is so especially grating on everyones nerves.
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There are many things I could respond to. I've already discussed on this board my distaste for how nostalgia pulls Boston back from the future. It being unnecessary and unhealthy.

I stand corrected on the parking lot remark.

But let's focus on the loss of this theater. In my life, I've been in the Wang once, in the Opera House once, and in that tiny Suffolk College theater once. These trips were rare and expensive. My experience with these theaters is mostly of passing by from the outside. The same could be said of the many grand salle's that dot the Back Bay.

Frankly, the grand rooms of Boston do the public zero aesthetic service. They are, of course, revenue and tax resources -- but not for a defunct theater. Your luxurious art form is now economically un-viable because you've catered only the rich. Theater's hard narcissism has killed it at last. Now you expect some public support to save your theater? The same one you tried so hard to hide from the unwashed masses? Go take a hike.

Chickens, home, and roosting, and all that.

You can fight for good public art. That's the good fight. But not for the Gaity. I weep not for thee.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

What are these "grand salles that dot the Back Bay"? If one of them is Jordan Hall, they have many free concerts throughout the year.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Ron Newman said:
What are these "grand salles that dot the Back Bay"? If one of them is Jordan Hall, they have many free concerts throughout the year.
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Oh... the Somerset, Algonquin, Union Clubs, Ames-Webster, Burrage, and Eben Jordan mansions, and other significant townhouses. They're pretty much everywhere in the Back Bay, and rimming the Common.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

I thought you were talking about theatres and auditoriums.

I would have liked to save the Gaiety, and even went to a few public events organized by the group that was trying to preserve it. But it had several strikes against it:

- closed since the early 1980s
- no grand and memorable façade to remind people it was there, like the Paramount and Modern; also no remaining sign or marquee
- not a fancy interior, like the Opera House (Keith Memorial)
- in most people's memory, used only as a third-run grindhouse, which isn't the kind of programming that tends to inspire a lot of nostalgia. Not many people are old enough to remember its previous use as a live burlesque stage
- no established institution willing to step in and rescue it (as Emerson did for the Majestic and Paramount, Suffolk for the Modern, and Clear Channel for the Opera House)
 
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Re: Residences at Kensington

Joe,

Do you have a vested interest in the project of some sort? I could understand your arguments if this was the only substantial development in the city right now. However, with a few notable exceptions, almost every single other development large and small going on in the area is superior to this in quality.

You mention beautifying a not-so-great neighborhood. I know beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but is this really the trend you want to set for the area? Mismatched precast monolithic panels offset by a 50s era curtain wall and soulless windows?

I showed a rendering of the original proposal which you declined to comment on, do you believe that was inferior to the current iteration?

I think the housing issue is a valid one, but should we be taking inspiration from the soviets and their housing blocks as a solution?

I also had nothing to do with the Gaiety preservation efforts (although I believe a few forum members did), however I do find it admirable. This was not a low building, it was contextual to the neighborhood. I also find it amusing their predictions of demolition followed by nothing but a windswept vacant lot nearly came true. The theater was demolished and the site sat stagnant for nearly a decade. A decade in which had the theater not been demolished another developer may have come along who had an interest in preserving the theatre, or at least its interaction with the street.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

davem said:
Joe,

Do you have a vested interest in the project of some sort?

...

You mention beautifying a not-so-great neighborhood. I know beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but is this really the trend you want to set for the area?
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I'm not interested in this project so much as I am interested in this neighborhood. Chinatown is in the best shape it has ever been -- since it's founding in Boston. From a quality-of-life and slum standpoint, it is better than New York's.

Most of the slum Chinatown has been off-shored to Quincy and Malden. But some fabric of the neighborhood remains.There is a delicate balance now between gentrification, and over-gentrification.

Which brings us to the Kensington, Archstone, Hayward Place or whatever it's called now, and that thing with the Dainty Dot. My feeling is that whatever papers over parking lots will do the neighborhood good. With the exception of the lot between Tyler and Harrison and several others, which are structurally integral to the neighborhood -- serving as common parkland space.

My current worry? Over-building will wipe out Chinatown like the West End or Scollay Square. I hope not. But deep down I know it will happen, an inevitable death that I worry about.

But a Chinatown with zero development is not great either. I don't like the North End theme park, for example.

By contrast, the aesthetic concerns of this building are elitist fluff to me.

I showed a rendering of the original proposal which you declined to comment on
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My only comments on that: Only fools trust salesmen. I will deal in what is, not what could have been.
 
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