World’s Ugliest City Hall
We love completely unscientific surveys and rankings like everyone else, but we were sad to read that Boston City Hall has been ranked the ugliest building or monument by TripAdvisor.com’s editors and readers.
Wonderful. Now Mayor Tom Menino will never give up on his quest to move City Hall to the Waterfront. If the tourists are offended by the concrete behemoth, maybe they won’t spend their money here, and isn’t that what City Hall is really all about?
When we first moved here, we hated the concrete mothership that occupies City Hall Plaza too. But recently, we’ve found it’s heinousness captivating. Like the World’s Ugliest Dog.
These fanny-pack-wearing philistines are overlooking the building’s impressive history. The brutalist modern structure was designed by award-winning architects I. M. Pei and Henry Cobb. In 1969, the American Institute of Architects gave the building an Honor Award.
Writing in The New York Times, Ada Louise Huxtable said Boston City Hall was magnificently monumental and “without a single one of those pompous pratfalls to the classical past.”
That’s right. No pompousity here. So before you malign our City Hall, tourists, at least make sure you understand it. Also, be sure to bring some bread crumbs to leave a trail should you have business within its walls.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:58 am
It might be ugly but its our little ugly building. I would hate to see this structure go.
November 15th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Weird. We were taught in college that Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles designed the building. Maybe tourists understand it better than you after all.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Pei designed the plaza. KMK designed the building.
November 18th, 2009 at 4:32 am
I don’t agree with this blog you should have more detailed discussion on the topic, I don’t think you have reached each point evenly and fairly. Can I link this blog so we can get more points of view? Thanks