Monthly Archive for March, 2006

Some details are finally start­ing to emerge sur­round­ing Apple’s plans for the con­struc­tion of a sig­na­ture Flag­ship retail store in the Back Bay, Boston. IfoAp­ple­Store reports that ren­der­ings of the pro­posed design have leaked (see left), and that the backward-​looking Back Bay Archi­tec­tural Com­mis­sion has seri­ous mis­giv­ings about the 3-story modern glass structure.

This is a shame… our won­der­fully acer­bic alter­na­tive news­pa­per, The Weekly Dig, said it better than I can:

Putting aside the mental gym­nas­tics it takes to believe that one glass build­ing would destroy the neigh­bor­hoody feel­ing of a three-​lane boule­vard that hosts a mall, a con­ven­tion center and the city’s second-​tallest tower, Apple’s run-​in with the BBAC raises a more imme­di­ate ques­tion: Is a cabal of frigid elit­ists sti­fling Boston’s growth while they defend some bull­shit Brah­min con­cep­tion of what an ex-​landfill should look like?

I sym­pa­thize with those urban plan­ners and crit­ics who reject the strip-mall/parking-lot 20th-century method of devel­op­ment – God knows, Boston is as pedestrian-​friendly as any city in North Amer­ica, and we’re better for it. But, there are many exam­ples of new projects designed to mimic the look of 19th-century Boston, with­out suc­ceed­ing in pre­serv­ing any sense of neigh­bor­hood cohe­sion. One glar­ing exam­ple of this is the mam­moth Hotel Com­mon­wealth, in Ken­more Square, which I’ve com­mented on in the past. That build­ing has as much “old-world charm”, as a 1970s-era French Tudor style sub­ur­ban tract home.

What I find strangest of all, is that this is a rel­a­tively small parcel of land we’re talk­ing about. Con­sider that on the very same block, across the street, Man­darin Ori­en­tal is build­ing a huge hotel, in front of the Pru­den­tial Tower/Mall, at street-​level.

If one of these devel­op­ments is going to change the char­ac­ter of the neigh­bor­hood, I’d worry more about that project.