Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

^ There are, by Rudolph's own hand. By the look of it, I think the scheme was developed in the 1970s, as it contains some gestures consistent with his work during that period.

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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

:(
DZH22 said:
It's basically like taking one of the old twin towers in NYC and stopping it 90 floors shorter. I think there are preliminary plans to potentially rehab and build additional floors on top.
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i don't discount the merit of that similarity.

But that curtain wall is proper for extreme and i mean EXTREME height ONLY.

This might even be an accepted fact, and properly edified the WTC.

This is nothing more than an EXTREMELY VULGAR BOX.

Worthy of any list of the most ugly boxes in the country.

Same as it ever was......

The architectural demonstration of Orwell's world, un-redacted, flaunted.

Fuck man. Do that in Pyongyang or Bishkek.

Thanks to 115 Winthrop, this God damned eyesore will become less visible.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

This is one that I don't think would look better any taller, unless it got 4-5 times taller. Adding a few floors or even doubling its height would take it from a muscular almost-cube (with some charm, I think) to a terribly proportioned eyesore. It's counterintuitive but somehow I feel it would read as chunkier with more height, at least until it got so tall it could be slender.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Sorry, when I said additional floors I wasn't necessarily under the impression that it would the same as the current ones. It could be another version of Quaker Lane or Atlantic Wharf (except those original buildings were more worthy of saving). I have no idea, but I know Belkin was at least in the brainstorming stage.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

^ Indeed. And this building was a test-bed for some concepts that have become integral to an entire movement within the "second wave" of Modernism. Tearing it down would be an act of vandalism not dissimilar to a car-collector crushing a Roadmaster so he'd have a place to park his McLaren.
 
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

The Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building's plan is so pure:
tumblr_oenubxsr7B1qe0nlvo1_1280.jpg


This is largely thanks to its innovative structural skin (much like Yamasaki's WTC) and mechanical systems:
19-facade-ventilation-system.jpg


Add any floors and you have to increase the elevators to 6 or 8, depending on height, and then you eat up all that floor area on the lower floors.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

^^With 115 Winthrop moving forward,

would adding condos on top of the Rudolph work?
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

odurandina said:
^^With 115 Winthrop moving forward,

would adding condos on top of the Rudolph work?
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Funny you should mention that; check out 133 Federal Street's criticism letter re: 115 Winthrop Sq. proposal, on precisely that subject.

"13. The owners of 133 Federal Street building have discussed with the BPDA a possible residential tower on our plaza and partially over our existing building. MP’s development next door with an excessive FAR will be extremely detrimental to our reasonable development plan."

http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/320d64f9-f3e8-47d8-8713-23143caac0e0

Page 23 on the master PDF of all the comment letters.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Beton Brut said:
^ And the loss of a unique Paul Rudolph work that presages the High-Tech Expressionism or Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, both his students at Yale. Steve Belkin should clean this little building up -- in its way, it's as historically significant as any example of modernism in Greater Boston.
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Don't care who designed it. The name alone should have no bearing on whether it stays or not.
I don't however find it to be that offensive, and prefer it stays. The bland box directly across and to the left in that picture looks much worse imo.

This is brutalism I don't dislike.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

SeamusMcFly said:
Don't care who designed it. The name alone should have no bearing on whether it stays or not.
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Understood. There are middling Rudolph buildings. This isn't one of them.

SeamusMcFly said:
This is brutalism I don't dislike.
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Perhaps because it's not actually Brutalism. It's the work of an architect who's most identified with that movement trying a few new things. In terms of unity in form, materials, and purpose, it's got more to do with James Stirling's Leicester Engineering Building (designed around the same time) than Corbu's La Tourette or Chandigarh.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I think we had essentially this same conversation like six months ago.

I'm very happy this building is being preserved, and this is from someone who finds most of Rudolph's large scale work off-putting.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I love this building. Its like a bite size wtc, almost like a show piece of what that style of architecture looked like where you can go up and check it out but its not on the skyline (which would have been great too). Those buildings with almost all the structure in the perimeter columns arent overdone at all.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Beton Brut said:
^ And the loss of a unique Paul Rudolph work that presages the High-Tech Expressionism or Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, both his students at Yale. Steve Belkin should clean this little building up -- in its way, it's as historically significant as any example of modernism in Greater Boston.
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Pretty sure it's a pending City of Boston Landmark so it would be very difficult to tear down. There are a lot of people in town who really like that building.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

A good power washing would do wonders for this building.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Its cool at the height it is too because its really only a few floors tall but built with the structural perimeter column style of high rises. This is a 1 of 1 in the city keep it. Too bad it wasnt 600’ that would have been badass on the skyline.

Imagine how cool it would be if instead of having to build a completely new glass tower on top of these older buildings you could just stretch them. If there was a way to stretch this exact tower to 600’ that would be badass and same with a couple of our art deco mid rises those would be incredible to disassemble the crown add 40 floors to the middle then put the crown back on top. Maybe as technology improves there will be a way to do this and also a way to blend some new facade panels so they match the old ones. Hopefully this becomes a reality in the future where you dont have to just gut them and build a glass tower but can literally stretch a great low rise into a high rise that you would otherwise gut and build a glass tower anyways. Especially with art deco towers this would be amazing.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

estyle said:
Pretty sure it's a pending City of Boston Landmark so it would be very difficult to tear down. There are a lot of people in town who really like that building.
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Yup, "under study as of 6.4.16," so as of next June its petition will have officially enjoyed (enjoyed officially?) three years stagnating in committee hell.

https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/imce-uploads/2017-12/petstats_december2017_chronological.pdf. On the last page, 5th-to-last petition.

Demerits levied for spelling "Commissioenr" on an City e-document.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Back to the 115 Winthrop Sq. Project, the signs around the site are all now Suffolk Construction branded.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Thank God.....

i'm still sad, the East Tower won't displace 1 Boston Place for 7th tallest.....
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

odurandina said:
Thank God.....

i'm still sad, the East Tower won't displace 1 Boston Place for 7th tallest.....
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It only counts as 1 tower so who the hell really cares?
 
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