BSA’s Boston City Hall original drawings exhibit Huxtable visit

     On Saturday October 14, the Huxtable Fellows were finally able to go out together on our first field trip to the BSA’s original Boston City Hall drawings exhibit. My original thoughts on the Boston City Hall were merely based on my experience from visiting it and walking by it on my way to work almost daily. I always questioned its site context contrasting brutalist architecture, its overwhelming scale, and un-inviting plaza that suggested me to keep moving by having continuous steps and unbearable heat radiating brick during the summer. I was hoping to get an idea of the reasons for some these decisions by looking at the process drawings/sketches. However, my concluding thoughts after the exhibit visit are that I was not able to learn what I was seeking and still feel that I do not know enough about its design to make an informed opinion.

     My thoughts on the exhibition being a design student is probably very different than someone unfamiliar with the design process.  Even though there were a lot of beautiful final competition drawings, I was on a mission to learn about the decisions that led to the design of the Boston City Hall. The drawings shown did present some of the smaller decisions towards the end of the design process, and some of the ideas behind it. It also showed me its intended purpose it changed over time, for example the public was to be able to see and walk through the building freely. However, although some preliminary sketches we’re shown, the real story of how the generic design came to be was missing. There was one fascinating rough site section showing adjacent buildings and scale, but it already showed the building massing very similar to the final drawings. In conclusion, visiting this exhibit reminded me of the importance of process drawings. It also allowed me to appreciate the value in being able to read these process drawings to draw own conclusions which I believe can be more powerful than those than those affirmed by the architect because it allows you to get an up close look at the creative and thought process while it was happening. In the meantime I will continue my research on the Boston City Hall so that I am better able to understand its architecture. 

~Al