Boston City Hall is the home of the municipal government of Boston, Massachusetts.

City Hall is a 9-level, horizontally-oriented brutalist building designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles and located at the heart of a brick-paved Government Center plaza in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is rectangular in plan, but is an inverted pyramid in elevation. The masterplan for Government Center was designed by IM Pei.

City Hall is located in Government Center in downtown Boston. The adjoining City Hall Plaza is often used for parades and rallies; most memorably, the region's championship sports teams, the Boston Celtics, Boston Bruins, New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox, have been feted in front of City Hall. A huge crowd in the plaza also greeted Queen Elizabeth II during her 1976 Bicentennial visit, as she walked from the Old State House to City Hall to have lunch with the Mayor.

Description

This monumental building was designed by Gerhard M. Kallmann, Noel M. McKinnell, and Edward F. Knowles, three Columbia University professors, who won the nationwide contest in 1962 to design the building. Their design, which was chosen out of 256 entries, revolved around the theme of creating a public and accessible character for the headquarters of the city's government (columns and eagles were out of fashion at the time). The architects were inspired in their aim for civic monumentality by precedents as varied as Le Corbusier’s works, especially the monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, with its cantilevered upper floors, exposed concrete structure, and its similar interpretation of public and private spaces, and Medieval and Renaissance Italian public spaces. Many of the elements in the design were abstractions of classical designs such as the coffers and the architrave above the cement columns. Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles collaborated with two other Boston architectural firms and one engineering firm to form the Architects and Engineers for the Boston City Hall, responsible for construction, which took place from 1963 to 1968.

City Hall divides into three sections, aesthetically and also by use. The lowest portion of the building, the brick-faced base, which is partially built into a hillside, consists of four levels of the departments of city government where the public has wide access. The brick largely transfers over to the exterior of this section, and it is joined by other earth-toned materials such as quarry tile and exposed concrete, all of which are typical of Boston buildings. The use of earth tones such as brick emphasizes the idea of public access in this building

The intermediate portion of City Hall houses the public officials — the Mayor, the City Council, and the Council Chamber. The grand scale and the protrusion of various interior spaces on the outside are symbolic of the ideal public connection with these areas of city government. These dramatic outcroppings severely contrast with the character of the other two portions of the building, which stick to a more regular pattern. They create an effect of a small city of concrete-sheltered structures cantilevered above the plaza. The cantilevers are supported by exterior columns, spaced alternately at and , which are steel-reinforced.

The upper stories contain the city’s office space, used by bureaucratic agencies not visited frequently by the public, such as the administrative and planning departments. This bureaucratic nature is reflected in the standardized window patterns, which are of the typical modern office building style.

The top of the brick base was designed as an elevated courtyard melding the fourth floor of the city hall with the plaza. Because of security concerns, city officials blocked access to the courtyard and to the outdoor stairways to Congress Street and the plaza. The courtyard is occasionally opened up for events (such as the celebration of the Boston Celtics championship in 1986). After 9/11 security was further increased. City Hall's north entrance facing the plaza was barricaded with jersey barriers and bicycle racks. All visitors entering the front and back entrances must pass through metal detectors.

City Hall was constructed using mainly cast-in-place and precast Portland cement and some masonry. About half of the concrete used in the building was precast — roughly 22,000 separate components — and the other half was poured-in-place concrete. All of the concrete used in the structure, excluding that of the columns, is mixed with a light, coarse rock. While the majority of the building is created using concrete, precast and poured-in-place concrete are distinguishable by their different colors and textures. For example, cast-in-place elements are coarse and grainy textured because the concrete was poured into fir wood frames to mold it, while precast elements, such as trusses and supports, were set in steel molds to gain smooth, clean surfaces. This distinction can also be seen in the fact that the exterior poured-in-place pieces are of Type I Cement, a lightly colored cement, while the exterior precast components use Type II Cement, a dark colored cement. Another usage of color distinction can be seen in the fact that the base of the building starts out dark, using brick, Welsh quarry tiles, mahogany walls, and darker concrete and then, as you ascend, the overall color of the structure lightens, as lighter concrete is used.

Reaction

After viewing the building for the first time, some in the architecture community promptly praised it, including Ada Louise Huxtable, who said, “What has been gained is a notable achievement in the creation and control of urban space, and in the uses of monumentality and humanity in the best pattern of great city building. Old and New Boston are joined through an act of urban design that relates directly to the quality of the city and its life."

The praise was not universal. Then-Mayor John Collins reportedly gasped as the design was first unveiled, and someone in the room blurted out, "What the hell is that? City Hall is unpopular with Bostonians, as it is with employees of the building, who see it as a dark and unfriendly eyesore. The structure's complex interior spaces result in cavernous voids, a confusing floorplan, and make the building very expensive to heat.

The surrounding City Hall Plaza has long been cited as a failure in terms of design and urban planning. In 2004 the Project for Public Spaces identified it as the worst single public plaza worldwide, out of hundreds of contenders. Some efforts have been made to liven up City Hall Plaza, but these have been met with mixed reactions.

On the other hand, the adjacent Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market buildings have met with stunning success following restoration. It is a place popular with tourists and natives alike, and generally well esteemed by architectural historians.

Despite the widespread dislike of City Hall among the city's residents and workers, many architecture critics consider it a fine example of brutalist architecture. It is listed among the "Greatest Buildings" by Great Buildings Online, an affiliate of Architecture Week In a 1976 poll of historians and architects, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects, Boston City Hall was voted the sixth greatest building in American history.

Possible Relocation and Demolition

On December 12, 2006, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino proposed selling the current city hall and adjacent plaza to private developers and moving the city government to a site in South Boston.

On April 24, 2007, the Boston Landmarks Commission reviewed a petition backed by a group of architects and preservationists to grant the building special landmark status (much to the dismay of Mayor Menino). The petition will be studied further before a final vote is taken.

On July 10, 2008, Landmarks Commission official said the petition to grant the building special landmark status had been recommended for study, but probably would not be considered by the panel unless a plan to demolish the structure was imminent. Members of the group Citizens for City Hall also opposed Mayor Menino's plan to build a new City Hall on the South Boston waterfront because it would be a major inconvenience for tens of thousands of city residents.

References

External links

• Official City of Boston website
• iBoston on Boston City Hall
• Brutalized in Boston, a critical review of the building
• CityMayors feature on Boston City Hall
• Complaints about Boston City Hall, concerning sick building syndrome

See also

• Old City Hall (Boston)