karavan's version, because of the downward angle on a cliffside towards the mediterranean, induced the danger of falling off into the swirling and rocky sea...
wow, I've never seen the Benjamin memorial. it looks spectacular, much nicer than the similar forced perspective at the ICA I think from these pictures, but obviously the greater programmatic needs at the ICA don't allow for such purity
i like it but can someone tell me why this building is a big deal? what boundaries are they pushing? i really can't figure it out. sure it's neat but why is it worth Outoussoff's claim that it is "the most important bulding to be built in boston in a generation"?
yeah. i've been to boston. and this building is a pretty big and welcome departure from all that red brick colonialism. although holl and gehry already departed from that at MIT. i guess i wasn't talking about within the context of boston, i'm talking about within the context of architecture everywhere... i'm not being skeptical i'm just looking for someone to explain this. what new ideas does DSR promote with this building? what boundaries are they pushing?
i agree with robust84. there are a few recent buildings in boston better than
this one. and more revolutionary. what is nice about this building is
that its the first museum to be built in 100 yrs. although i guess that's
not really including stirlings harvard museum. it's also a part of a
recent trend in new architecture in beantown. holl's building, gehry's building..
the new building to happen with the mfa. major architect's didn't used
to build there.
of course, to say this is the best building in a generation is to say it's
better than the two above...better than corbu's carpenter center,
better than pei's hancock..(or more significant), better than aalto's
baker hall...serinen's chapel etc. which i don't think it is. but i look
forward to seeing it.
ds and r have built before of course. the apartment building in japan...the
fog thingy...the brasserie. but it is the first of their new buildings as
a partnership. the lincoln center and the high line being the next
couple of tests.
and janosh... i know the pm at perry dean. i think they got blamed
for a lot of the mistakes...and for keeping things real.
No, to say its the best buildling in a generation is specifically EXCLUDING comparing it to anything older than 25-30 years. I think the article even states that its the best Boston building SINCE the Hancock.
Hi larslrson,
the cloud is a temporary installation, and the Bras is interiordesign, but can you (or everyone else) provide a pic or link to "the apartment building in japan" of DS+R ..hmmm, never heard about it. ...and cant figure it out, now they are making this mystic H&deM staff in not having a website ...well there is something...
If you have access to the June 2000 issue of Architecture ("Archit") magazine, there's a good feature on it (and on the firm) in there. I haven't found anything really good on it on the net, but it's called the "Slither" building.
i was just amazed at how derrivative this project is of FOA's work. The ribbon gimmick was defnitely something the FOA was pioneering in (see Azadi Cineplex, BBC building - both designed and published before D+S did the ICA and Eyebeam projects), but more so in the detailing - it seems like so much of it is straight out of the yokohama project - the glazing, the railings, the undulating wood decking ...
FOG Lite...
don't get me wrong. i'm glad that it's been built and it's DS+Rs
first building in america. I misunderstood the generation comment
... i guess you're right that it's 30 years or so. The only building that
could be a competitor in Boston proper is the acquarium..but that's
really a gehry knock off. the ICA is really the only major work in 30
years in downtown...so i guess it winds by default. i kind of always
assume that cambridge is included.
Actually, two other buildings that could compete are Machado Silvetti's
library and Harvard building...maybe Brian Healy's parking garage.
but none of those are major though..but they've
got nice details...
Most of the nicer architecture has been built outside the city mainly
due to a lack of space i think. the fan pier is the last area to be
developed.
lars
Yeah, unfortunately it is the clear winner by default. Personally I was really disappointed with the Machado Silvetti building for Harvard. The Allston library is good, but more in general competence way than in pushing any design ideas. But when you consider that god awful thing that got built next to the Pru, the convention center, and the TD Bay Bank One of America Garden replacement then it's quite clear that the ICA is a standout.
I think there is an argument to be made for the big dig to be one of the most interesting buildings if you're willing to stretch the definitions a bit. And certainly there's much more building left to be done. I just hope it doesn't get mired in historicism the way many projects in Boston do.
Also, I think the reason that people might think that first picture looks like a rendering is because it is displayed at a lower res on this page so it gets some anit-aliasing jaggies that make it look more pixelated and more like a rendering. And all those surfaces in there are materials that rendering engines can do really well, white walls, shiny plastic, glass and computer screens.
the big dig definitely fits as an urban design element obviously.
and is great as a time saver...having grown up there and driving
through the callahan every time we had to go the airport....the
ted williams knocks off about a half hour.
what is good is that hopefully this helps to continue the trend
towards contemporary architecture...and away from developertecture.
add to your list as potential competitors the two buildings near
kendall...i believe for genzyme. they're pretty nice for labs/offices
I'm still a fan of city hall - even if it's a corb knock off (la tourrette?) and the works of C7. So why does the quality of built projects in boston/cambridge/ summerville/brookline/et al suffer when there is all that talent at the GSD/MIT? It's not like there is no local talent beyond M+S?
why did mit have to hire gehry or holl? even for the hancock, they looked to NYC... or did Rowe's wharf scare all design sense out of developers?
Glad to finally be having this discussion- all those aspiring GSDer and MIT wanna bes gotta be having second thoughts about beantown.
well...pei was probably chosen cause he went to mit..he did
a whole bunch of work for mit and also did the christian science
center which is also pretty niceish..the christian science center
was just being completed at the time of the jh building's startup
so he was probably prominent in the builder's minds.
as far as mit hiring gehry or holl..this continues a trend by mit
of hiring famous architects to do their major new buildings...
they did hire a local architect (i believe) to do the building
across the street from the stata. but their campus is full of
major architects works. same with harvard. i think they make
it a point of going outside of their ranks so as not to be political.
the buildings around city hall are also nice...(the ones in the
same vein) i've also liked city hall as well..the plaza is another
story. (try walking across it in the middle of winter every day...
course doesn't really compare to minn.) i sort of heard that city
hall is the lincoln memorial upside down..abstracted.
as far as the quality of work goes...well there's been a major
conservative bent with the city planners..clients...developers.
new englanders are a provincial/tried and true/give me a
victorian group. developers ruled the day until recently in
cambridge because they had the money and could push the
right buttons...not doing anything controversial. time will tell if
these three new buildings within the past five years show a trend
towards identity buildings or are merely isolated incidents. there
are still good firms in boston...just few and far between.
There's a lot of good design going on in Boston. It's just that a lot of it is private, or interiors work, so it's not as high-profile. Boston doesn't need a big fish every year.
More important at the larger scale is, like lars mentioned, the big dig, and the improvements to the city's urban fabric that are going on.
not a big fish every year...but a big fish every ten years would
be nice. before the recent trend there hadn't been a major work
since the hancock, christian science center, johnson's library..
there've been a lot of projects that have died on the board...
now they're finally starting to get built.
i really hope the big dig does what it should...but as a bostonian
i'm cynical...i think it's a requirement. it is nice that you don't
have to walk through rat infested walkways to get to the north end,
but i always kind of liked the uniqueness of the green elevated
highway.. probably something best left for nostalgia.
Lars- I was waxing rhetorically. for all the swollen egos lingering in the ivory towers surrounding the hub, there should be more great work comming out of beantown. So M+S seem to be the best exportable arch talent, the 'scapers have been doing better.
That said, MIT & havad's campuses contributed quite nicely to influencing my formative years as an arch student. Just never really wanted to move back home and practice there...
i used to kind of enjoy it when the big dig had huge swaths of the city torn up and you could peer down between some of the barricades and feel like you were literally staring into the interior of the earth...ah the old days.
also, i think one of the more special things about the ICA building was the commitment to doing somethin special from its early stages. i remember going to a public presentation about five years ago when DS+R, office da, peter zumthor, and studio granda all made presentations in an effort to get the job. it's kind of remarkable how similar this building actually is to what they presented that day. and if i recall, they easily had the most complete idea for what they intended to do with the site. it wasn't literally a building that they presented...more ideas and diagrams...but still similar to what we have now.
although being a huge fan of studio granda i would have loved to seen what they might have done there too. oh well.
i'd like to see that. i commuted through the mess that was
the big dig for months. every day the traffic pattern changed...
very cool. sometimes frustrating, but i usually found it interesting
having things changing every day. and it just made me think that
it must have been one of the most amazingly scheduled jobs ever.
regardless of the mistakes and delays figuring out how to change
things on a daily basis must have been quite the headache.
puddles.
i remember that talk..didn't get a chance to go...but it was great
to see architects of that caliber actually flocking to boston to talk
about creating a building. i too would have liked to see what
studio granda would have created..and zumthor for that matter..
although i think he'd be wrong for this project...ultimately i think
they made the right choice and i can't wait to see it finished.
i used to park in the parking lot right next to it for work. that
whole area has changed so much. (including being filmed in
'the departed').
Oh--almost forgot about this one--not sure how good it will be, but it looks intriguing during construction at least--OfficeDa is doing a large condo building near the freeway south of washington. I think they're going for leed rating. It's called the MacAllen and it's pretty funky.
j-turn
or it's the difference between a digital camera and a professional
photographer...longer exposure time and a good flash..that and
taking at the right time of day. of course even if taken by a pro
it's probably been post produced.
meta, I definitely agree. I went to the opening Sunday and sat down at the computer and it completely obstructs your view. I get that they're trying to say that computers are the new books and all, but it'd be nice to have both computers and some rows without and some books to read or something, or just enough space to sit and contemplate the view. Oh well. I do think it's a spectacular project and agree with myriam that Boston seems much more conservative than it actually is... it's just all the big visible projects go either to (in most cases) developers and crap architects or (in a select few cases) big name architects chosen mostly for name rather than substance. That having been said, there really are some great local offices as well as great work produced by offices that are not local, you just have to look a bit harder to find it, I think. I also feel like a huge opportunity was lost with the Big Dig. Rather than replacing one division (a highway) with another (a swath of greenspace between still arterial roads), why not leave up the old elevated expressway and turn it into some sort of building or outdoor spaces that people could occupy and walk along like the old highway. That was such a great view, like a section cut right through the middle of downtown. There's an office in Cambridge (can't think of their name right now) that was featured in Metropolis a few years back and lectured at Wentworth a couple years ago about how they are using scraps of the old highway as structure for buildings. It's a really intriguing idea, but I think it could have been even stronger and more compelling had some of it remained in place downtown for some sort of creative reuse. That's the issue with Boston I think, not a lack of talent, but a lack of willingness to think outside the box on the part of civic planners, developers and the public at large. For such a heavily Democratic city, Bostonians are really much more conservative than they like to think. Still, the ICA, whether it's pushing the limits at all or not (I think it is somewhat, but not a whole lot) is a step in the right direction for Boston. It'll be interesting to see if similarly interesting (and perhaps even more revolutionary) buildings are built up in the barrent wasteland of parking lots around it, or if like just a few blocks away, the area will become filled with utterly banal condo high rises.
new dizzier - mac-ofidio & vertigo in Boston
wow ...nice product placement
reminds me of dani karavan's walter benjamin memorial...
precarious...
karavan's version, because of the downward angle on a cliffside towards the mediterranean, induced the danger of falling off into the swirling and rocky sea...
similar language in a different use...
wow, I've never seen the Benjamin memorial. it looks spectacular, much nicer than the similar forced perspective at the ICA I think from these pictures, but obviously the greater programmatic needs at the ICA don't allow for such purity
How much does that ICA photo look like a rendering?
Are you telling me that is [i]not[/]i] a rendering???
nope, it's a photo from Ouroussoff's review of the complete building: link
cool huh? kinda makes you think again about the phrase 'photo-real'.
Someone once told me that if the building looks like a/the rendering, it is a success.
i like it but can someone tell me why this building is a big deal? what boundaries are they pushing? i really can't figure it out. sure it's neat but why is it worth Outoussoff's claim that it is "the most important bulding to be built in boston in a generation"?
Have you been to Boston?
yeah. i've been to boston. and this building is a pretty big and welcome departure from all that red brick colonialism. although holl and gehry already departed from that at MIT. i guess i wasn't talking about within the context of boston, i'm talking about within the context of architecture everywhere... i'm not being skeptical i'm just looking for someone to explain this. what new ideas does DSR promote with this building? what boundaries are they pushing?
...the boundary between making nice renderings and
build physically ...its theyr first real building, isn´t it?
“One small step for architecture, one giant leap for DS+R.”
contemax, because it's a milestone for DSR?
Props also to Perry Dean Rogers as the executive architecct. One can imagine what they had to go through.
i agree with robust84. there are a few recent buildings in boston better than
this one. and more revolutionary. what is nice about this building is
that its the first museum to be built in 100 yrs. although i guess that's
not really including stirlings harvard museum. it's also a part of a
recent trend in new architecture in beantown. holl's building, gehry's building..
the new building to happen with the mfa. major architect's didn't used
to build there.
of course, to say this is the best building in a generation is to say it's
better than the two above...better than corbu's carpenter center,
better than pei's hancock..(or more significant), better than aalto's
baker hall...serinen's chapel etc. which i don't think it is. but i look
forward to seeing it.
ds and r have built before of course. the apartment building in japan...the
fog thingy...the brasserie. but it is the first of their new buildings as
a partnership. the lincoln center and the high line being the next
couple of tests.
and janosh... i know the pm at perry dean. i think they got blamed
for a lot of the mistakes...and for keeping things real.
No, to say its the best buildling in a generation is specifically EXCLUDING comparing it to anything older than 25-30 years. I think the article even states that its the best Boston building SINCE the Hancock.
Also if you exclude anything built in Cambridge, then new ICA easily wins.
dizzier, mac-ofidio & vertigo=diller, scofidio, & renfro...
pushing it in some areas...
Hi larslrson,
the cloud is a temporary installation, and the Bras is interiordesign, but can you (or everyone else) provide a pic or link to "the apartment building in japan" of DS+R ..hmmm, never heard about it. ...and cant figure it out, now they are making this mystic H&deM staff in not having a website ...well there is something...
If you have access to the June 2000 issue of Architecture ("Archit") magazine, there's a good feature on it (and on the firm) in there. I haven't found anything really good on it on the net, but it's called the "Slither" building.
Some more on it here... you really should see the plan and sections, it comes together really nicely... very elegant.
http://www.cooper.edu/architecture/faculty/faculty/scofidio/scofidio19.html
i was in the Brazzarie (sp?) one night. Knocked one of the wall panels off of the wall
and then?
explain ribbon architecture...
you forgot...
villa vpro
and the king, denari
i was just amazed at how derrivative this project is of FOA's work. The ribbon gimmick was defnitely something the FOA was pioneering in (see Azadi Cineplex, BBC building - both designed and published before D+S did the ICA and Eyebeam projects), but more so in the detailing - it seems like so much of it is straight out of the yokohama project - the glazing, the railings, the undulating wood decking ...
FOG Lite...
don't get me wrong. i'm glad that it's been built and it's DS+Rs
first building in america. I misunderstood the generation comment
... i guess you're right that it's 30 years or so. The only building that
could be a competitor in Boston proper is the acquarium..but that's
really a gehry knock off. the ICA is really the only major work in 30
years in downtown...so i guess it winds by default. i kind of always
assume that cambridge is included.
Actually, two other buildings that could compete are Machado Silvetti's
library and Harvard building...maybe Brian Healy's parking garage.
but none of those are major though..but they've
got nice details...
Most of the nicer architecture has been built outside the city mainly
due to a lack of space i think. the fan pier is the last area to be
developed.
ribbon?
lars
Yeah, unfortunately it is the clear winner by default. Personally I was really disappointed with the Machado Silvetti building for Harvard. The Allston library is good, but more in general competence way than in pushing any design ideas. But when you consider that god awful thing that got built next to the Pru, the convention center, and the TD Bay Bank One of America Garden replacement then it's quite clear that the ICA is a standout.
I think there is an argument to be made for the big dig to be one of the most interesting buildings if you're willing to stretch the definitions a bit. And certainly there's much more building left to be done. I just hope it doesn't get mired in historicism the way many projects in Boston do.
Also, I think the reason that people might think that first picture looks like a rendering is because it is displayed at a lower res on this page so it gets some anit-aliasing jaggies that make it look more pixelated and more like a rendering. And all those surfaces in there are materials that rendering engines can do really well, white walls, shiny plastic, glass and computer screens.
is this a discussion of who figured out how to rip off early 70s graphic design first?
steven-
that was vado-esque.
FOG-
the big dig definitely fits as an urban design element obviously.
and is great as a time saver...having grown up there and driving
through the callahan every time we had to go the airport....the
ted williams knocks off about a half hour.
what is good is that hopefully this helps to continue the trend
towards contemporary architecture...and away from developertecture.
add to your list as potential competitors the two buildings near
kendall...i believe for genzyme. they're pretty nice for labs/offices
I'm still a fan of city hall - even if it's a corb knock off (la tourrette?) and the works of C7. So why does the quality of built projects in boston/cambridge/ summerville/brookline/et al suffer when there is all that talent at the GSD/MIT? It's not like there is no local talent beyond M+S?
why did mit have to hire gehry or holl? even for the hancock, they looked to NYC... or did Rowe's wharf scare all design sense out of developers?
Glad to finally be having this discussion- all those aspiring GSDer and MIT wanna bes gotta be having second thoughts about beantown.
treekillah
well...pei was probably chosen cause he went to mit..he did
a whole bunch of work for mit and also did the christian science
center which is also pretty niceish..the christian science center
was just being completed at the time of the jh building's startup
so he was probably prominent in the builder's minds.
as far as mit hiring gehry or holl..this continues a trend by mit
of hiring famous architects to do their major new buildings...
they did hire a local architect (i believe) to do the building
across the street from the stata. but their campus is full of
major architects works. same with harvard. i think they make
it a point of going outside of their ranks so as not to be political.
the buildings around city hall are also nice...(the ones in the
same vein) i've also liked city hall as well..the plaza is another
story. (try walking across it in the middle of winter every day...
course doesn't really compare to minn.) i sort of heard that city
hall is the lincoln memorial upside down..abstracted.
as far as the quality of work goes...well there's been a major
conservative bent with the city planners..clients...developers.
new englanders are a provincial/tried and true/give me a
victorian group. developers ruled the day until recently in
cambridge because they had the money and could push the
right buttons...not doing anything controversial. time will tell if
these three new buildings within the past five years show a trend
towards identity buildings or are merely isolated incidents. there
are still good firms in boston...just few and far between.
have always been a fan of schwartz/silver but haven't heard much of them lately.
There's a lot of good design going on in Boston. It's just that a lot of it is private, or interiors work, so it's not as high-profile. Boston doesn't need a big fish every year.
More important at the larger scale is, like lars mentioned, the big dig, and the improvements to the city's urban fabric that are going on.
steven. they just did this building recently
link
myriam.
not a big fish every year...but a big fish every ten years would
be nice. before the recent trend there hadn't been a major work
since the hancock, christian science center, johnson's library..
there've been a lot of projects that have died on the board...
now they're finally starting to get built.
i really hope the big dig does what it should...but as a bostonian
i'm cynical...i think it's a requirement. it is nice that you don't
have to walk through rat infested walkways to get to the north end,
but i always kind of liked the uniqueness of the green elevated
highway.. probably something best left for nostalgia.
Lars- I was waxing rhetorically. for all the swollen egos lingering in the ivory towers surrounding the hub, there should be more great work comming out of beantown. So M+S seem to be the best exportable arch talent, the 'scapers have been doing better.
That said, MIT & havad's campuses contributed quite nicely to influencing my formative years as an arch student. Just never really wanted to move back home and practice there...
Anyone impressed that something like this ACTUALLy got built in America?
I have some cool videos of the bulldozers ripping the Other Green Monster down, lars. Maybe one day I'll youtube them.
i used to kind of enjoy it when the big dig had huge swaths of the city torn up and you could peer down between some of the barricades and feel like you were literally staring into the interior of the earth...ah the old days.
also, i think one of the more special things about the ICA building was the commitment to doing somethin special from its early stages. i remember going to a public presentation about five years ago when DS+R, office da, peter zumthor, and studio granda all made presentations in an effort to get the job. it's kind of remarkable how similar this building actually is to what they presented that day. and if i recall, they easily had the most complete idea for what they intended to do with the site. it wasn't literally a building that they presented...more ideas and diagrams...but still similar to what we have now.
although being a huge fan of studio granda i would have loved to seen what they might have done there too. oh well.
it would be better with PCs instead of MACs !
myriam.
i'd like to see that. i commuted through the mess that was
the big dig for months. every day the traffic pattern changed...
very cool. sometimes frustrating, but i usually found it interesting
having things changing every day. and it just made me think that
it must have been one of the most amazingly scheduled jobs ever.
regardless of the mistakes and delays figuring out how to change
things on a daily basis must have been quite the headache.
puddles.
i remember that talk..didn't get a chance to go...but it was great
to see architects of that caliber actually flocking to boston to talk
about creating a building. i too would have liked to see what
studio granda would have created..and zumthor for that matter..
although i think he'd be wrong for this project...ultimately i think
they made the right choice and i can't wait to see it finished.
i used to park in the parking lot right next to it for work. that
whole area has changed so much. (including being filmed in
'the departed').
Oh--almost forgot about this one--not sure how good it will be, but it looks intriguing during construction at least--OfficeDa is doing a large condo building near the freeway south of washington. I think they're going for leed rating. It's called the MacAllen and it's pretty funky.
that photo of the ica is highly post-produced. here's a more likely document of that space:
oops, go see it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christy_scanda/318757779/
j-turn
or it's the difference between a digital camera and a professional
photographer...longer exposure time and a good flash..that and
taking at the right time of day. of course even if taken by a pro
it's probably been post produced.
meta, I definitely agree. I went to the opening Sunday and sat down at the computer and it completely obstructs your view. I get that they're trying to say that computers are the new books and all, but it'd be nice to have both computers and some rows without and some books to read or something, or just enough space to sit and contemplate the view. Oh well. I do think it's a spectacular project and agree with myriam that Boston seems much more conservative than it actually is... it's just all the big visible projects go either to (in most cases) developers and crap architects or (in a select few cases) big name architects chosen mostly for name rather than substance. That having been said, there really are some great local offices as well as great work produced by offices that are not local, you just have to look a bit harder to find it, I think. I also feel like a huge opportunity was lost with the Big Dig. Rather than replacing one division (a highway) with another (a swath of greenspace between still arterial roads), why not leave up the old elevated expressway and turn it into some sort of building or outdoor spaces that people could occupy and walk along like the old highway. That was such a great view, like a section cut right through the middle of downtown. There's an office in Cambridge (can't think of their name right now) that was featured in Metropolis a few years back and lectured at Wentworth a couple years ago about how they are using scraps of the old highway as structure for buildings. It's a really intriguing idea, but I think it could have been even stronger and more compelling had some of it remained in place downtown for some sort of creative reuse. That's the issue with Boston I think, not a lack of talent, but a lack of willingness to think outside the box on the part of civic planners, developers and the public at large. For such a heavily Democratic city, Bostonians are really much more conservative than they like to think. Still, the ICA, whether it's pushing the limits at all or not (I think it is somewhat, but not a whole lot) is a step in the right direction for Boston. It'll be interesting to see if similarly interesting (and perhaps even more revolutionary) buildings are built up in the barrent wasteland of parking lots around it, or if like just a few blocks away, the area will become filled with utterly banal condo high rises.
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