Paul Rudolph's 1962-1971 Government Service Center (photo: Bruce T. Martin)Sarah Schweitzer writes in the January 24th edition of the
Boston Globe Sunday Magazine that the Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) recently reviewed the city's collection of modern buildings and,
concluded that earlier surveys of post-World War II buildings had displayed a "widespread lack of understanding, appreciation, and context for buildings of this period." Some are, in fact, "architectural treasures," the commission concluded, even as "modern architecture has not yet gained the popular stature of traditional design in our culture."
The article mentions two of Paul Rudolph's celebrated buildings in Boston: the Government Service Center (also known as the Lindemann Center and the Furley Building) and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building located at 133 Federal Street. Both structures have been mentioned numerous times in this blog, with the
Blue Cross building being threatened with demolition for a proposed office tower by noted architect Rienzo Piano.
Paul Rudolph's Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building (photo: Sean Khorsandi)The article notes the complicated, but not uncommon, problem faced by mid-century buildings located in older, historic cities:
The mid-century-modern buildings -- most notoriously, those that rose in Government Center on the site of the leveled Scollay Square -- buried blocks of history to make room for themselves. But the buildings’ defenders say that past sins must be forgiven and that the buildings should be recognized for their own history -- that of ushering Boston into the 20th century. When they were built, Boston was suffering from the departure of its manufacturing base. Nothing of note had been built in downtown for decades. The new buildings rising on the skyline were a sign of turnaround.
Mentioning Paul Rudolph's design for Blue Cross/Blue Shield at 133 Federal Street, the author goes on to bring up the State Service Center (also known as the Lindemann Center):
Take the State Service Center, a building housing health and welfare agencies on Staniford Street that consistently is waved off as one of the ugliest buildings in Boston. But a close look reveals delicate theatrics, much like a Gothic cathedral. The concrete walls are chiseled to look like corduroy, stairs curve and bend around pillars and bridges like unfolded paper fans, and painstaking detail can be glimpsed throughout -- a handrail perfectly molded to fit the grip of a human hand. The building is commentary, too. Rising when social strictures were being jettisoned as artifice, its concrete structural components were deliberately left visible to the eye, with no brick walls or stone sheaths as a veneer. The building leaves mid-century-modern fans awe-struck. “Spectacular,” Fixler (a Boston architect and president of the New England chapter of DOCOMOMO)says. Pasnik, a Boston architect and co-curator of the pinkcomma gallery exhibit, notes: “So bizarre and bold and full of chutzpah, at a minimum everyone should agree it is compelling.” Yet calls continue for its demolition.
But what to do with these buildings? Too often demolition is seen as a simple solution after a lack of attention and necessary upkeep allowed them to become eyesores.
Even some tending-to would help. Many of Boston’s mid-century-moderns have been allowed to deteriorate, and their exteriors have turned sooty and water-stained.
In conclusion, Ms. Schweitzer pleads the case for patience:
Bostonians owe these buildings a bit more time. Architecture styles tend to suffer the heaviest criticism 30 to 50 years after their introduction, Fixler explains. Victorian architecture came under ridicule in the mid 20th century, and calls for its eradication were heard. Mid-century-moderns may have landed in a pool of criticism from the get-go. But with open minds, Bostonians could come to love them. Or at least respect them.
A response critical of the author's support of these buildings can be found online
here. While not every building built during the '60s and '70s is necessarily representative of the era and of good design worthy of preservation, the response in general reflects the attitude of those who would rather see the entire period returned the to very architecture the mid-century buildings were designed to replace.
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