Three Cities About the Size of Boston

[ablarc]

Just so we are clear.
You are not against Modernism per se, right?

Who?

Boston City Hall, FLW, the Johnson House are all still cool despite their suburban design?

Boston City Hall is not really suburban, it's a free-standing urban monument like Faneuil Hall across the street.

I've seen the Johnson House, and it's not suburban either. It's a villa on an estate --like the Villa Rotonda.

Some of Wright's Oak Park houses qualify as suburban, but much of Wright's work was set in wilderness --with at least one example brilliantly sited in the city.

Suburban buildings (such as the ones I design) are entirely sited by the application of mathematical regulations. This is why I never visit the sites I design for in the suburbs; it wouldn't make any difference if I did. You don't design a suburban site plan, you look it up.

As Krier says: it makes no difference in the suburbs.

And how does PoMo fit into all this?

PoMo may be artistically thin and intellectually flabby, but it rediscovered some sound principles of designing in cities. Gund's State Street building is an example.

 

[Ron Newman]

Shouldn't suburban buildings still be sensitive to their context, meaning the terrain and the surrounding built environment? The suburbs that I like the best -- Arlington, Belmont, Watertown, Brookline, and Newton -- mostly strike a good balance in this way.

 

[ablarc]

Shouldn't suburban buildings still be sensitive to their context, meaning the terrain and the surrounding built environment?

They should indeed --but it's not legal. In the case of houses, relationship to the surrounding environment was standardized eons ago by setbacks, while relationship to terrain is circumstantial; the terrain is there, and it's not required to be rearranged for single-family residential.

In the case of commercial and multi-family developments, the site plan of a lot is entirely determined by wheelchair-accessibility gradients, parking requirements, water detention, setbacks and buffers, permeability ratios, tree ordinance, and firetruck turning radii. All these are mathematically described by regulations. The regulations are the context.

All the information needed to work out the site plan is provided on paper by the surveyor and the site development standards ring binders, and the process is purely mathematical. It can be performed by the architect if he knows how to do the fairly complicated runoff calculations, or he can farm it out to a civil engineer if he doesn't. You couldn't change it for scenographic reasons if you wanted to.

That's why all commercial lots these days are graded into conformity. The regulations came into full bloom only about 35 years ago, and they are tightened regularly --especially with regard to accessibility and detention.

The suburbs that I like the best -- Arlington, Belmont, Watertown, Brookline, and Newton -- mostly strike a good balance in this way.

Old suburbs, pre-regulation.

Give them time, they'll evolve incrementally till you can't tell them from the ones in Charlotte.

 

[statler]

Thanks ablarc. I should have remembered City Hall = monument from your earlier essay. That makes sense, though it leads to more questions.

How do you define 'suburban'?
You have said that City Hall is monumental and the Moakley Courthouse on the waterfront is suburban.
It seems (to me) that Cobb was going for monumental (the large glass 'cone'). Where did he slip up into suburban?

Fan Pier seems like a good place for a monumental building and a federal court house a good a purpose as any for a monument. Just so long as it has the requisite density around it (which we now know it won't). How did Cobb screw it up?

Rowes Wharf seems to have found the right mixture of monument (the arch) and urbanity (the 'fingers').

Back to your original point:

It also put more space between buildings, which the Modernists said should be green. This was an easy sell because it dovetailed with people's desire to own a house in the country like the fat cats

This is probably the key point in the suburban mess we find ourselves in.

The difference is, I believe you put the cart before the horse.
I think the Modernist ideals dovetailed into people's desire to live like the fat cats.
It's a minor but important distinction.

Rather than the Modernists ideals driving market forces, market forces were driving Modernist ideals.
People have always wanted to live like the fat cats. And there is a reason the fat cats chose to live that way. It's not a bad way to live.

The problem is that it's impossible for everyone to get their own villa.
But..
With a. cheap land, b. really generous housing policy, c. better transportation technology, suddenly people could have their own mini-villa!
Almost like the real thing. But not quite.

So the problem becomes, not how do you get the mucky-mucks to stop designing and planning these mini-villas but how to get the proles to stop demanding them and accept apartment living like their European counterparts.
Good luck.

 

[ablarc]

Thanks ablarc. I should have remembered City Hall = monument from your earlier essay. That makes sense, though it leads to more questions.

How do you define 'suburban'?

You have said that City Hall is monumental and the Moakley Courthouse on the waterfront is suburban.

It seems (to me) that Cobb was going for monumental (the large glass 'cone'). Where did he slip up into suburban?

Suburban buildings are objects in the infinitude of space. City Hall sits in a semi-defined urban space that would be much more circumscribed if not for the piffling "view corridor" to North Church.

The Courthouse has insufficient sculptural presence or interest to be a monument --and it hedges its bets anyway at its edges by becoming a streetwall building --and a mighty dull one at that. Suburban buildings often have little fringes of grass or bark chips around their base, like doilies. That's a sure sign: memories of lawn.

Fan Pier seems like a good place for a monumental building and a federal court house a good a purpose as any for a monument. Just so long as it has the requisite density around it (which we now know it won't). How did Cobb screw it up?

Wrong building for this site. Why do litigants need a view? Housing could have put it to better use. Footprint too big. Architectural detailing undeveloped and boring, massing clunky.

Rowes Wharf seems to have found the right mixture of monument (the arch) and urbanity (the 'fingers').

Rowe's Wharf is a paragon. Truly admirable.

The difference is, I believe you put the cart before the horse.
I think the Modernist ideals dovetailed into people's desire to live like the fat cats.
It's a minor but important distinction.

People have always wanted to live like the fat cats. And there is a reason the fat cats chose to live that way. It's not a bad way to live.

Don't think I said which came first, just that they dovetailed. Hadrian yearned for country life in the Second Century.

Rather than the Modernists ideals driving market forces, market forces were driving Modernist ideals.

The ol' back and forth.

So the problem becomes, not how do you get the mucky-mucks to stop designing and planning these mini-villas but how to get the proles to stop demanding them and accept apartment living like their European counterparts.

I'd be happy if they stopped trying to suburbanize what's left of the city ...

The partly-ruined city suburbanized (even as density goes up). Suburbia comes to Huntington Avenue. See the little grass doilies?

... and if they'd legalize city building where it's illegal ... which is most places.

 

[ablarc]

Arguably the type of reactionism embodied in Seaside is the "spirit of the age". New Urbanism hasn't been insurgent since 1995.

It sure retains the power to rouse Norman Foster's ire.

Architects mostly deride New Urbanism (and so do most planners) --decades after Seaside.

 

[bdurden]

It sure retains the power to rouse Norman Foster's ire.

Architects mostly deride New Urbanism (and so do most planners) --decades after Seaside.

Is this because most examples of new urbanism fail to meet their intended objectives? I never understand the idea that Seaside is somehow about rejecting the present in favor of the past--hardly. It has some of the most modern, efficient homes I have ever seen. It's effect on the surrounding communities cannot be understated--without Seaside it would be another lifeless and ruined stretch of pristine Florida beaches.

 

[ablarc]

Is this because most examples of new urbanism fail to meet their intended objectives?

Not sure they fail to meet their objectives. Architects don't like them because they run counter to their book knowledge about urbanism and architecture --which is pretty much straight out of the Modernist hymnbook.

I never understand the idea that Seaside is somehow about rejecting the present in favor of the past--hardly. It has some of the most modern, efficient homes I have ever seen. It's effect on the surrounding communities cannot be understated--without Seaside it would be another lifeless and ruined stretch of pristine Florida beaches.

Exactly.

Seaside is by far the best American example of New Urbanism. Goes to show that the first is often the best; after this, Duany rapidly became lifeless and academic. Maybe it's the fact that Krier functioned as design guru at Seaside; his Poundbury design is just as good --maybe even better.

 

[cden4]

What is with the townhouses on the little curvy street? That is utterly ridiculous! If you want to live in the suburbs, move to the suburbs. I want my streetwall darnit!

 

[ablarc]

What is with the townhouses on the little curvy street?

Modernist town planning.

It's what they (still) teach in school lots of places.

Can you believe it?

 

[Lrfox]

Unbelievable. What's the line of thinking behind it? I mean how does a development like that benefit an urban area in any way? My god, look at their little driveways... It looks like my old neighborhood in Assonet. Disgusting.

*EDIT*
Also, look how the townhouses COMPLETELY (and quite literally) turn their back on Huntington Ave. People should be fighting to have their front stoop right on the Huntington sidewalk.

 

[Ron Newman]

This development is called Mission Park. You can read about its history here. The site is a former convent.

 

[Lrfox]

Thanks for the link, Ron.

What else has John Sharratt done in Boston? Is it as bad as this? It's a shame the bowfront homes couldn't have been saved. If Harvard could afford to invest all this money into the Mission Park Development, why couldn't it spend that money on fixing up the older homes? I wish i had a better idea of what existed before MP so i could feel more confident in my questioning, but i doubt it could have been this bad.

 

[ablarc]

What else has John Sharratt done in Boston?

Villa Victoria, South End.

Is it as bad as this?

Not quite, but almost.

 

[Ron Newman]

The houses that were demolished for Longwood Medical expansion were on a different site than Mission Park. As I said, Mission Park is the site of a former convent (and therefore never very 'urban').

 

[humphrey]

Whilst I completely sympathise with your urban principles the comparison you are making is a bit unfair. Boston was a heavily industrialised city, and these types of urban areas were subject to urban renewal during the post war years due to the high number of dilapidated buildings and the free rein given to modernists. In my country (the U.K) the centres of the major industrial cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow suffered greatly from the widespread demolition of historic buildings, proliferation of parking lots and all the worst excesses of the 60s and 70s. It is to these sorts of places that Boston should be compared and it actually comes out pretty favourably despite the loss of the West End, Government center and the central artery.

The examples you have chosen are Prague and Brussels. Prague was a major city of the Austro-Hungarian empire, therefore its historic core is large and still displays all the affluence of that era. It has been well preserved in the centre because it suffered little damage during World War II and after the war it was ruled by an incompetent communist government that made little attempt to update the old city and let the whole thing slowly crumble. What did do was bulldoze large sections of the outskirts and put up block after block of brutalist towers. Whilst the centre look idylic, the people living there are mainly rich outsiders, students and embassy staff, the Czechs who live there mainly live in the kind of conditions you would associate with communist Russia rather than some urban utopia. For this reason most Czechs I speak to in London hate the place. Brussels is a great looking city, again a medieval centre that was preserved by economic stagnation and a general unwillingness to industrialise. It is now the centre for the gravy train that is the European parliament and full of bureaucrats. Again it is a nice place but it hasn't really shared the same experience as Boston. The other point to make is that outside the historic core, the inner city and suburbs of most European cities tend to very bland and grim and not something to emulate.

I live in London and have been to a number of U.S cities and most major European cities and I have to say Boston is my favourite amongst them for a number of reasons, the most important being that it is a historic city but also a functioning city which has moved with the times with some of the best architecture I have seen on my travels (not including city hall). Don?t give up on the instinct to perfect and improve but at the same time don?t be too hard on yourselves

A Londoner

 

[statler]

Welcome humphrey!

An excellent post. It's great to get an outside perspective on these matters.

 

[humphrey]

Welcome humphrey!

An excellent post. It's great to get an outside perspective on these matters.

Thanks, its is awful to see threads like this and the destruction that was caused.

http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10814

However its worth remembering every city seems to have a story like this to tell. There are massive chunks of London missing and there is not a lot left of Exeter in Devon, which was once regarded as the most beautiful city in England. Bombs damaged the structures and modernists finished the job. The example of Munich is interesting because there is a misconception that the concrete jungles you see in UK cities were raised on flattened bombsites where the structures were beyond repair. Munich however, recieved comparable damage but was able to restore much of it to how it looked before. I wish I could say this was typical of what happened during the rebuilding of German cities.

 

[statler]

The other point to make is that outside the historic core, the inner city and suburbs of most European cities tend to very bland and grim and not something to emulate.

How tightly is the fate of these suburbs bound to the condition of the historic core?
That is, if the core was willing to sacrifice some of its 'charm' (building more modern, efficient buildings, wider roadways, etc) would that alleviate the pressure on the inner cities and 'burbs?

 

[Lrfox]

Not to change the subject, but welcome, Humphrey, and thank you for the link. I'm 22 and all I've ever seen of Boston is what we have today. The photos were fascinating, Dock Square, the West End (before and after), the Elevated Rail on Atlantic Avenue, etc. Very Medieval looking indeed.