most people think that boston city hall
is one of the ugliest buildings they have
ever seen. i'm not going to argue with them
-- taste is subjective, and there's no
accounting for it -- but let us take a
moment to examine the warts of this frog,
and maybe to lick it. who knows - when
you're done reading, maybe you will agree
with me that boston city hall is one of the
most remarkable architectural
achievements ever.

first, let's look at the thing. if you're
not standing in front of it right now,
simply whip out a penny, flip it to the tails
side, and turn it upside down.

that's boston city hall --
an inverted lincoln memorial,
buried halfway into the ground.
undeniably classical columns rise from the
brick plaza, and they are topped by a flat
crown that protrudes out over the ground
below. the whole thing has the vague
appearance of a fat old mushroom, and
that's what boston city government is like:
bloated, bulbous, and musty.

there is a method to this madness, at least
according to the vision of its architects. the
shapes that form the outside of the
building reveal what is going on inside
that part of it. that is: the bottom level,
where the spaces between the columns are
wide and inviting, houses functions that
the public needs to use -- this is where you
pay parking tickets and take care of other
unavoidable civic duties. of course, the
appearance of permeability is purely
illusory -- the entrances are actually very
difficult to find, and, of course, you still
have to stand in line once you're in there.
but it looks open and inviting.

the top level, which is made up of rows
and rows of identical windows, like a
beehive, is the home of boston's
permanent bureaucracy. the people who
are hired rather than elected work there.
these are the people who stay no matter
who is mayor, and they are answerable to
everyone and to no one all at once. these
difficult to reach floors are where you go
to apply for licenses if you want to spin
off a gallery/theater space/club/coffee
house from your 'zine.

finally, between these two levels, as if
acting as a go-between, are the offices of
the elected officials. here, the building
breaks with the classicism of the lincoln
memorial. these rooms jut out from
between the columns and from under the
warren above them and their windows are
larger. the mayor's office looks inland,
toward the municipality, and it hangs
over the main entrance, sheltering it from
the elements. it is a warm gesture, if
somewhat coldly executed.

the fact that the building sits in the
middle of government center plaza
doesn't help at all. there are more bricks in
that undulating, windswept expanse than
in red square in moscow. it is dotted with
seventies-style lights and inexplicable
railings. on a rainy, blustery day it is hell
on earth. imagine a 6 by 6 inch picture
inside a 6 by 6 foot frame, and you'll have
a sense for how awkward boston city hall
looks in the middle of its surrounding
space. that space was designed by the one
and only i m pei, who should be taken out
back and shot without trial, as far as i'm
concerned.

up close, you might be surprised --
the building is made of poured concrete,
but the wooden frames they used for
molds left the mark of their grain on the
surface, almost like petrified trees.
of course, most people who look at
boston city hall don't see the symbolism in
the shapes or feel the texture beneath their
fingers. you can hardly blame them. the
official architectural term for boston city
hall's style says a lot: it is "brutalism".
one can cultivate an appreciation for the
brutalism of boston city hall by recalling
the history and politics of architecture that
preceded it. let's look at the tadpoles that
grew into this warty toad.

back in the 1870's, henry hobson richardson
< "h h" to his friends > moved to boston to
oversee the construction of his trinity
church. he got a big budget and a nice, if
challengingly shaped, site and created a
fantastic < literally > and beautifully
imposing structure. it is considered by
people in the know as among the ten most
important buildings in american
architecture, and its rugged stonework,
stout arches, and lurking gargoyles are
enough to take your breath away. it still
dominates boston's copley square, though
it is overshadowed < again, literally > by
the 60-story hancock tower
< designed by i m pei >.

mr. pei was told, "do something
that reflects the precious architectural
heritage and history of the surrounding
area" and came up with a 600 foot mirror.
he's probably still laughing about that one.

richardson's influence on american
architecture cannot be overstated. the train
stops he built in new england -- low,
arched buildings, always of native stone,
with shallowly-pitched roofs and
eyebrow-dormered windows -- form the
model railroad cliché of a train stop. his
marshall field wholesale store in chicago
and albany city hall were copied endlessly
across the country, becoming archetype.
his buildings were not european copies --
they were uniquely american in their
brashness and naturalistic charm.
richardson died in his forties, at the height
of his career, which is probably the best
way to go.

richardson's students carried on his
tradition, though they took different
paths. mckimm, mead, and white made
penn station in new york < whose
twentieth century demolition was largely
responsible for starting the preservation
movement >, the boston public library,
and the minneapolis museum of arts,
among many. but the star of richardson's
court was louis sullivan. known as "father
of the skyscraper", he took architecture
where it hadn't gone before < way up high >
and brought philosophy into it as well
with his assertion that "form must follow
function". he was among those who
founded the chicago school of
architecture, and frank lloyd wright got
his start as a draftsman for sullivan. his
designs broke new ground, picking up
where richardson had left off by taking
advantage of new inventions like steel
frame construction and the safety elevator.
it looked like he was the next big thing.
but his good ideas weren't good enough --
politics destroyed his career. the columbian
expo of 1893 in chicago was taken over
by architects from the east coast who wished
to revive classicism for their robber baron
patrons. the new captains of industry
didn't want new and different -- they
wanted acropolis knock-offs to house their
banks and offices.

by recalling the kings of
old, they seemed to reason, they could cast
themselves in a majestic light. sullivan's
building at the expo was the rose among
the thorns -- it employed almost oriental
themes but no one was interested. his
career took a turn for the worse, and after
that, he could only get gigs doing banks in
small towns in the midwest.

these buildings are among the best of sullivan's
life, and show incredible imagination, but
he died penniless and alone.

modernism took sullivan's idea that
form must follow function and dumped it
on its head. form should prescribe
function, they believed. some german
architects in the thirties saw the plain
functionality of mill buildings of new
england, and saw a metaphor for their
socialist visions. basically, they thought
that if a building was absolutely plain and
the rooms inside it all the same, people
would begin acting the same, too.

the result was a box. no pitched roof, no
arches, and certainly no gargoyles. those
were all symbols of wealth. classless
architecture could breed a classless society.
clearly, their plans did not work.

capitalists soon coöpted modernism
because of the high profit margin that such
cheap buildings guaranteed. they didn't
care about the philosophy. they just
wanted to throw something up, preferably
something tall, and call it good. they didn't
think about the effects that a thousand feet
of steel and glass plunked down on a city
block might have on the surroundings:
downdrafts, no sunlight, etc. it's all about
making money. "civic responsibility"
means the "civic" should be "responsible"
to lower taxes so that the buildings can get
even higher.

what the germans started, the americans
picked up. roosevelt and eisenhower did
their part by funding the suburbanization
that followed, with low interest home
loans and the federal interstate system. the
latter could have done more damage
to the cities and countryside of america only
by bombing them, and few urban areas
survived that time intact. further, the
"urban renewal" of the fifties razed acres
and acres of neighborhoods everywhere
for highrises and interchanges.

boston was not immune, and it was upon the
bulldozed remains of scollay square that
boston city hall rose in the late sixties.
scollay square had been famous for its
burlesque bars and attendant bawdy
sailors, but it was a victim to the times,
like the twelve thousand people that were
moved from the nearby west end when it
was razed a few years earlier.

it is difficult not to hate boston city
hall for being part of such a shortsighted,
misguided policy, one that flew in the face
of the ideals of generations, but it is not
the building's fault, after all.
having followed the innovation of
mighty richardson and scorned sullivan,
and the follies of modernism in both its
socialist and capitalist forms, boston city
hall presented a new idea: yes, form must
follow function, but why should you
recognize the form? it is
representationalism made to seem
presentational, a metaphor that is
completely literal. almost childlike. if art is
often a struggle between clarity and
purity, boston city hall is unabashed m its
apathy for the former.

of course, you can still say that the
place is wicked ugly and i would have
trouble disagreeing with you. the
conventional range of beauty that does not
include boston city hall is large: most
people i know hate the place. and while i
have great admiration for an artistic
expression so pure and uncaring, i have to
admit that the front door is difficult to
find, and that i still hate waiting in line
once i'm inside.