BOSTON has an overwhelmingly large amount of modern and historic architecture in a small radius. Projects by many world-famous Architects, including those by Frank Gehry and I M Pei lie in this area.
1. MACALLEN BUILDING CONDOMINIUMS
Location- Boston, MA, USA
Project Year- 2007
Typology- Residential
Completed in 2007 the Macallen Building is one of the famous residential buildings in South Boston.The design focuses on the edge conditions of the surroundings with the use of materials and facade systems.
The west side of the building has a curtain wall system which gives an amazing parametric view of the Boston skyline, while it has beautiful brickwork which blends in with the similar historic residential neighbourhood on the east side.The north and the south side of the building is covered in huge bronze panels and glass staggered formwork which reflects the industrial areas on the either sides. It is one of the first gold LEED approved buildings of the city.
2. BOSTON CITY HALL
Location- Boston, MA, USA
Project Year- 1968
Typology- Institutional
A brutalist type city hall of 1968, a rough beton-concrete building which connects the public and private sectors of the government either physically or visually. It is a concrete tripartite design that stratifies the public from the administrative. A large open plaza separates the main entrance of the city hall and the street. The tiles in this plaza are laid out such that they continue inside the lobby of the building which results in a subtle transition from outdoors to indoors.
3. JFK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Location- Boston, MA, USA
Project Year- 1979
Typology- Museum
A 1979 memorial and archive dedicated to the life and political career of John F. Kenedy. This project was given to an emerging architect of that era, I.M. Pei, who was famous for his geometric shapes of concrete and glass, who gave the JFK library a place in the most iconic buildings in Boston. The structure has a triangular tower protruding out from an expanding base geometric form, it is a hollowed out cube of glass and steel which basically represents a void, overlooking the Boston harbour and skyline. The circulatory system is deliberately designed as a dark and confined where the occupant is shown a brief biographical film.
4. SIMMONS HALL AT MIT
Location – Boston, MA
Project Year- 1999-2002
Typology- Institutional Residential
A mixture of functionality and design, the Simmons Hall is one of the famous highlights of the Boston skyline. Architect Steve Holl’s artistic idea inspired by “sponge” where the building would metaphorically soak up all the light through a series of large openings. The cut outs in the building acted as the “lungs” as they would bring the natural light down while circulating the air up. These cut-outs also functioned as interaction spaces which was the primary aim of the MIT, “student mingling and interaction”. The building acts as a whole city in itself, with its wide corridors, communal spaces which includes theatres, night cafes, street level dining etc.The colored gridded facade enhances the urban condition in a completely closed structure. The building is said to be both “rational and intuitive”.
5. N PUBLIC MARKET
Location- Boston, MA,USA
Project Year- 2015
Typology- Market
The structure focuses completely on user experience, with crisply detailed white canopies of corrugated metal and evenly washed with up-lights, creating a luminous canted ceilings that vault over 40 distinctive vendor stalls. Building-scale signs, exterior lighting and window decals designed as part of the project.
6. MIT STATA CENTER
Location- Boston
Project Year- 2004
Typology- University
An ambitious foray into academic buildings designed for the computer, information and intelligence science programs at MIT, Frank Gehry often referred to the project as “a party of drunken robots that got together”. The highly intricate form envisioned a sprawling academic complex of visually amorphous structures which was a mIxture of both study and social space for the students. An example of deconstructivist design the building design appears to be fragmented, chaotic or disjoint with a number of materials used which also included corrugated metals which gave a mirrored-polished look in some parts of the building.
7. COMMUNITY ROWING BOATHOUSE
Location- Boston
Project Year- 2008
Typology- Boathouse
The Harleston Parker Medal award winning building for “the single most beautiful building or other structure” built in the metropolitan Boston area it is
an innovative design, a structure built on a neglected stretch of public land now one of the most visited sites in Boston. the basic ideology of the structure was to expand vocabulary of rowing facilities, a long narrow footprint is divided to engender a public court that establishes both a visual connection to the riverfront as well as a functional connection to the boathouse. The facade of the building rhythmic, keeping in mind the fluidity of the river.
8. KRESGE AUDITORIUM
Location- Boston
Project Year- 1955
Typology- University
United State’s first large scale thin shell concrete building, Kresge Auditorium is an elegant reinforced concrete dome which encloses about half an acre triangular space. The fifty foot tall structure has a copper cladding for the roof and curtain wall is installed for the sides. The main stage in the auditorium had a fibreglass pad flooring which deadened the potentially disruptive vibrations from transferring to the theatre below. Many more acoustical materials were used for the interiors of the auditorium such the oak wall grating with absorptive backing, polychrome fabric seats and an array of curvilinear suspended panels that control the sound waves. Architect Eero Saarinen captivated the public with his unique design with his bold yet simple geometric forms.
9. BAKER HOUSE DORMITORY
Location- Cambridge, MA, USA
Project Year- 1948
Typology- Dorms
Alvar Aalto gave a lot of thought towards the aesthetic enjoyment of the college life by creating a serpentine structure which offered an elegant solution to maximizing the view for each resident of the dorm rooms. The structure has a dark rustic brick facade. Structural columns are plastered on the lower levels, while the timber cladding allows them to form a relationship with the trees.
10. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Location- Boston, MA, USA
Project Year- 2010
Typology- Museum
One of the largest museums in the world, MFA is a fine example of amalgamation of old and new ears. Founded in 1870, a neoclassical structure with fine detailed entrance with expanded and changed over the following years. Architecturally, the project echoes themes explored in the Reichstag and the Great Court at the British Museum, combining elements of old and new and strengthening links with the community by making the museum building more open and accessible.
