Boston's much-maligned City Hall Plaza--the centerpiece of a severe 70s redevelopment scheme known as Government Center, and the forlorn hole at the heart of one of America's most elegant cities--may soon be nothing more than a memory:
After decades of loathing from public officials and the public alike, Boston’s City Hall Plaza is finally poised for a makeover, courtesy of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency has selected City Hall Plaza as one of five winners of its new Greening America’s Capitals program, which will annually award design assistance grants for green makeovers of dysfunctional sites in state capitals.
When City Hall Plaza and the government building within it were built by Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles in the heyday of urban renewal in the mid-1960s, they were envisioned as a grand civic ensemble. Instead, the plaza’s seven acres of concrete and brick have primarily served as a daunting interruption of downtown Boston’s tight-knit fabric. “We thought Boston City Hall was a fabulous candidate for the program,” said Rosemary Monahan, the EPA’s Region 1 smart growth coordinator. “It’s a barren, windswept, desolate place. In the winter, it’s like trudging across Siberia.”
On the one hand, I appreciate the feeling of space and straight lines contrasting to the more organic grain of the surrounding urban fabric, much as the plaza in front of the Centre Pompidou in Paris provides a counterpoint to the density of the Marais. That kind of contrast can be a strength.
On the other hand, let's face it: City Hall Plaza is scaleless, forbidding, and cold at any time of year. A charming Italian piazza, it definitely isn't.
More.
Comments