They got the Seaport right after all.

[vanshnookenraggen]

That post just pumped me up. You are a true legend ablarc, but even better you are a teacher. It will take time but your words will not go unheeded.

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

Yep, another blockbuster from ablarc, deserves its own thread. Makes me so depressed to see how horrible Boston and the entire country has screwed itself up for the last 60 years. How come the BRA can't see it!

As for the "style doesn't matter," I've always wondered why the Elm St side of Davis Sq is so lively, while right around the corner, the Highland Ave side is perpetually empty. It certainly isn't because the buildings on Elm St are more beautiful, they're universally dreadful. But the Elm St side is narrow, feels more enclosed, while the Highland side is wide and feels empty despite how many people might be walking there. One side just naturally attracts people while the other just naturally drives them away.

 

[statler]

Again, thanks ablarc.

Amazing work as always.

For anyone who wants an easy print version of these essays to be distributed or mailed, you can download them here:

They Got the Seaport Right.doc

Lack of Will.doc

Disclaimers:
This is the first time I've tried this so it may not work.
Be careful where you send it out as few of the photos are credited and we don't even know ablarc's real name, so there is no proper credit given to the author.
So no sending them to publishing houses, magazines or newspapers.
Also, I will immediatly remove these at ablarc's request.

 

[Ron Newman]

Regarding Davis Square -- that might be part of the problem, but the other part is the street-level business mix on Highland Ave -- too many banks, insurance agencies, accountants, travel agencies and the like that don't attract foot traffic, especially after 5 pm. The best thing that could happen to that street would be the FDIC closing some or all of the banks.

A commercial street can be much wider than Highland Avenue and still be fun to walk down -- see, for instance, Mass. Ave. between Harvard and Porter squares, or Mass. Ave. in Central Square, or Boylston St. in Back Bay.

 

[bdurden]

The Berlin redevelopment would fit in so wonderfully in Boston. When I see those wide Commie boulevards all I can think about is Cambridge Street. I'd love to see this sort of development around Government Center. Who needs skyscrapers when you have this sort of urban fabric?

 

[ablarc]

Who needs skyscrapers when you have this sort of urban fabric?

That's exactly what Leon Krier would say.

 

[ablarc]

No one has taken the trouble to identify the places shown in the first post of this thread. Is this because they're so obvious that everyone knows them?

 

[ablarc]

Thanks to Cojapo.

 

[briv]

No one has taken the trouble to identify the places shown in the first post of this thread. Is this because they're so obvious that everyone knows them?

Easy. They're Boston in 2050.

Seriously though, I think I see some Budapest, some Amsterdam and the last sequence appears to be somewhere in the Greek Islands? Definitely Mediterranean.

 

[ablarc]

^
1-4 St. Petersburg
5-6; 8-9 Lido of Venice
7 Burano
10 Augsburg
11-12 Bruges (Brugge)
13 Munich
14 Freiburg
15 Tours, France
16 Lindau, Germany
17 Strasbourg
18 Sveti Stefan, Montenegro
19-22 Mykonos
23 Portofino
24-27 St. Petersburg

 

[Roxxma]

Hmm, I recognized Munich and Strasbourg (BTW, one of Boston's sister cities). I didn't recognize Lindau, even though I spent two days there in October 2006 (and highly recommend it as a stop to anyone visiting the Bodensee area).

 

[whighlander]

Although much is masterful -- I will argue against some of it:

1) MIT versus HaAAAHaaVaaahhhD YAAAAHD {HY}
MIT as the academic complex designed by Wells Bosworth and then accreted to by many others is superior to the disconnected unrelated buildings in HY ? despite the efforts of Bulfinch, Richardson, etc. However, there is no aesthetic, pedestrian or other reasonable comparison of HAAAAAhAAAVAhAAAD Sq. {H. Sq.} with Kendal Sq./ Cambridge Center except for economic value of the commercial real estate

2) Trees
In the summer -- here abouts you do need trees along the sidewalks for haven during the short but brutal summer

3) Winter cover
The Pru for all its faults {and they are myriad} is one of the most pleasant places in Boston when the winter winds howl replete with embedded and entrained liquid and / or solid water {the infamous ?Winter Mix? or pink blob on the Doppler weather radar maps}

Unfortunately, in this climate -- pedestrians need some ?outrside insideness? to connect several major inside spaces and yet that doesn't isolate the inside people from the street {e.g. the Minneapolis-like ?plus 15? gerbil tube over Huntington}. Today we have the technology to have operable big opening boxes {stadium roofs} -- perhaps Boston could be a pioneer in convertible connectors from building to building. In the summer you?d have sidewalk cafes, in the winter they could be replaced with glass or plastic tubes that shelter the pedestrians from the inclemency just beyond}. There is a bit of some of that in openable glass at Quincy Market and in H Sq.

Westy

 

[Ron Newman]

The Pru for all its faults {and they are myriad} is one of the most pleasant places in Boston when the winter winds howl

Which is quite a change from when I first arrived here. Back then the Pru was probably the most unpleasant place you could possibly be in any kind of bad weather. It's probably the principal reason that retail never thrived there until it was turned into a fully enclosed mall.

 

[kmp1284]

^
1-4 St. Petersburg
5-6; 8-9 Lido of Venice
7 Burano
10 Augsburg
11-12 Bruges (Brugge)
13 Munich
14 Freiburg
15 Tours, France
16 Lindau, Germany
17 Strasbourg
18 Sveti Stefan, Montenegro
19-22 Mykonos
23 Portofino
24-27 St. Petersburg

Hey, that's super, you can put together a photo essay of a bunch of cities built in the first millenium BCE. Your comparison to Boston, no matter how tongue in cheek it may be is irrelevant; small potatoes as you so insightfully observed about the JFK development. Let's see something built in the current century, with today's economic constraints that meets your most discriminating architectural taste. I agree, the old cities of Europe are vastly superior to SBW but let's get real, this isn't how things are done in 2007.

 

[ablarc]

"How things are done in 2007"

Much in post #20 was built in the 21st Century.

Because code requirements have so escalated the cost of conventional construction, the gap has narrowed between that and older techniques.

Things are done as ground rules dictate. If you change the rules things will be done differently. There's always a better way.

Few think how things are done is the best possible. Believing that betrays a deep pessimism about the improvability of the future, so I don't see your point.

Many times in history we've gone back to the future. All those movements starting with the letters "Re"...



(Btw, nothing in any photograph was built in the 1st Millenium.)

 

[ablarc]

It is very frustrating watching the Seaport develop so badly when there were so many existing models to learn from -- and not even overseas, but right here, locally.

There was also a great opportunity here for a contemporary local style to emerge. I personally would've liked to see some fusion of South Boston's attached three-deckers, Fort Point's warehouses and the industrial buildings that occupy the belt just south of the Seaport. Could've been something completely unique, and relevant. Instead we've got a generic convention district, full of generic buildings that could've been swiped from any city in the country.

Yeah, but getting the FUNDAMENTALS right is paramount, and those are the same everywhere.

If you get the fundamentals right --no matter what clothes you dress them in-- folks will say, "Hey, that's nice, I don't see this most places."

And however you've dressed it, it will come to be known as the new BOSTON STYLE.




(Just make sure you get the fundamentals right. Problem in the Seaport is that those buildings don't.)

 

[kennedy]

A little late on this reply, but ablarc, you call for intimate spaces, variety, ground level retail, and intimate waterfront, and few (if any) vehicular traffic. While this is alive and well in Europe, why can't we just look at Orlando? Walt Disney World, when it was first conceived, was what Walt wanted all cities in the world to be based on, so it has some very important lessons in urban design. Back to the topic, Downtown Disney and the CityWalk at Universal incorporate many of your 22 Theses.

I'll post pictures, but at the moment, the Celtics are playing. In the meantime, just the links.

http://www.ineedavacation.com/disneyland/graphics/downtown_disney_night.jpg
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/orlando-city-guide-ga-12d.jpg
http://www.laokay.com/lathumb/laphoto/CityWalk.jpg
http://www.orlandowelcomecenter.com/images/city-walk.gif

 

[bdurden]

I see what you are saying, but that is probably a bigger lesson to be learned for the City of Orlando themselves, which has sprawled incessantly since the inception of Walt Disney World. A tourist based Seaport would end up looking less like Pleasure Island or City Walk, and more like Baltimore's waterfront, which one could argue, would still be an improvement upon Fan Pier.

Universal Orlando is indeed a great example in urban redevelopment--ditching its expansive parking lots for garages, mass transit, and a walkable pedestrian environment.

 

[ablarc]

I'm probably odd for saying so, but I even like the buildings in the last photo.

That's where we can put all the hedge-fund boys after they lose their jobs ...

I think they just did.

Very Russian low-income housing-type?

Like Stuyvesant Town or Peter Cooper Village?

 

[czsz]

I was actually inside Stuy Town for the first time recently...the apartments are beautiful and a great value. No wonder it's become so desirable...and won't be torn down anytime soon.