Boston Government Center Walking Tour: Urban Renewal and its Legacies
How can we better understand the urban redevelopment planning projects of the 1960s? How do current renewal plans affect examples found in downtown Boston? On Saturday, November 18, a group of about thirty-five people gathered in Boston for a walking tour focused on the architecture of the Boston Government Center to consider these questions. Docomomo New England, the modernist preservation group, organized the tour as part of their year-long, national reappraisal of post-World War II urban renewal projects.
Professor Timothy M. Rohan, Department Chair of the History of Art & Architecture Department, and Scott Bascom and Nat Crosby of the Boston architecture, planning, landscape and design firm Sasaki Associates led the walking tour.
“Twenty-first century redevelopment is transforming this part of Boston rapidly,” Professor Rohan explained. He encouraged attendees to “consider how urban redevelopment of the 1960s played out here and its legacies for today.”
The tour began by visiting the buildings and plaza of the Boston Government Service Center, whose master planner was the architect, Paul Rudolph. As the author of the book The Architecture of Paul Rudolph, Tim Rohan provided knowledgeable context on the design and history of the building. He explained how many aspects of it were never completed as intended and how it has suffered from neglect over the years. The Commonwealth is currently contemplating a radical redesign of the complex.
The group then walked to Boston City Hall, designed by Kallmann, McKinnell, & Knowles, passing historic Boston landmarks along the way. Once there, Scott Bascom and Nat Crosby of Sasaki Associates explained the firm’s recently completed redesign of the city hall’s plaza. Long considered unsuccessful, the plaza has been made more user friendly and sustainable with new plantings, paving, and a playground.
The Boston event related to an earlier autumn tour of the UMass Campus’s Brutalist monuments led by Tim Rohan on October 13, 2023. This tour was also sponsored by Docomomo New England, but in partnership with UMass Brut, the group that advocates for the support and understanding of the remarkable modernist buildings found across the campuses of the UMass system. An annual event, the Amherst tour also drew over thirty-tour attendees, including architecture enthusiasts from well-beyond the region.
For more tours, events, and information regarding architecture at UMass Amherst, visit UMassBRUT.
