[don-code]

Architecturally, the city of Boston has changed many times. You can more or less pinpoint when a building was built by its appearance. City Hall's architecture is mirrored in most of the transit stops from the 1970s-era expansion. Some of them (e.g. Wollaston, Harvard) have since been rebuilt; others (e.g. Quincy Adams, Malden Center) are still concrete behemoths like City Hall.

Anything built within the last ten years is, of course, LEED-chic - the building is a glass box.

[FrontierProject]

Funny thing about the glass box. If you look down Tremont Street towards the bay you used to get a beautifully framed view of Old North Church. The sightline was considered a historical landmark (there's even a plaque for it in front of the Omni Parker House hotel). The Government Center station completely obstructed the view to Old North. Allegedly this is one of the main reasons that Government center is a glass box, it was the only way the construction was approved.

[Finnucane]

The glass box thing started here too: IM Pei's Hancock tower was one of the first, from the 1970s. And like many architectural wonders, the construction was crap. I can still remember going by and seeing all the boarded-up windows, because the glass kept falling out.

[ghaff]

Though none of the Brutalist IM Pei buildings at MIT were as bad, my understanding that they had to retrofit a revolving door in one of them because the wind tunnel effect could make it really hard to open the doors.

https://nowiknow.com/the-curious-problem-with-mits-tallest-b...