Jackson, Huson, “Architect’s Role in Shaping His City: The Hancock Matter” in

AIA Journal (Jun 1968).

Doubtless the final word on Boston's John Hancock project is a long way from being said.
The implications in architecture, urban design, preservation and zoning are so profound
as to suggest continued debate. The Boston Zoning Commission, meanwhile, has adopted
an amendment to the city's zoning ordinance making possible the designation of large-
tract developments as special subdevelopment districts -- eliminating the need for variances
from the Board of Zoning Appeal. This paves the way for the Hancock Tower.

The author: Mr. Jackson is chairman of the Boston Society of Architects' Special Committee
on John Hancock. He writes here as an individual.

More fortunate than most American cities, Boston has had a slower pace of growth during
the 20th century that has kept largely intact the harmony of form and the consistency of
scale achieved by earlier ages. When technical developments made skyscraper construction
possible, this innovation, welcomed so enthusiastically in Chicago and New York, was
viewed with misgiving by Bostonians. The Massachusetts Legislature was quick to pass
laws regulating the height of buildings and, until quite recently, kept such laws on the
books with respect to downtown areas.

As the 1960s opened, Boston inaugurated a new mayor, John Collins. Dedicated to the
rejuvenation of the city, one of Collins' first steps was to bring in Edward Logue as director
of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The architectural and planning professions
approved as Logue recruited a competent professional staff and appointed, under the
chairmanship of Hugh A. Stubbins. FAIA, a Design Advisory Committee composed of the
city's outstanding architects, including some of the most respected names of this generation,
to guide the BRA's work.

Planning a Government Center for the "New Boston" was one of the BRA's first tasks, and
for this I. M. Pei & Partners were retained as urban designers. Pei and his associates took
great care to study the downtown area. They trod the streets to determine scale and
character and to select those buildings which should be preserved as landmarks. As designs
for the Government Center took shape, they made efforts to bring the state and federal
office buildings, already at that time in early planning stages, into harmony with the overall
planning and volumes which were being established for the new center.

And they laid the groundwork for a nationwide competition to design Boston's new City
Hall, which is now nearing completion. In all of this work, considerable effort was spent to

GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 1
assure that the new growth took place in harmony with its Boston setting.

The Government Center was not the only important undertaking of the BRA. Under its
guidance, far-reaching plans have, been made for renewal of the central business district
anchored to the complete redevelopment of South Station as a trade and transportation
Center. The waterfront is also being replanned and renewed with the emphasis on cultural
and recreational uses and with housing replacing decaying business in the granite
warehouses and along the docks.

Elsewhere, the residential parts of the city are being subjected to a selective rehabilitation
process in which much existing housing is modernized and new housing is carefully
introduced into the established neighborhoods. The "New Boston" emerging from all of
these endeavors is related in scale and character to the old.

In the late 1950s, before the arrival of Collins and Logue, the Prudential Insurance Company,
benefiting from the availability of a large site adjacent to Back Bay (to be vacated by the
Boston and Albany railway yards) began planning a huge office, commercial, and residential
development. Construction of this complex was delayed for a number of years until the
Commonwealth passed legislation granting tax concessions and setting aside Boston's
building and zoning codes in its favor.

The principal building of this project, reflecting rather the investment potential of its sponsor
than the market needs for office space in the city, was a 50-story tower some 750 feet
high. Boston's homogenous silhouette was suddenly broken by a single slender shaft on a
new scale, that of New York or Chicago.

More buildings were to come in the complex, and architects hoped that these might make
the ties needed to the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods lying on either side. But
the additional buildings, serving apartment and commercial functions (the larger of which
approach half the height of the office tower) seem to draw back from their environment as
if fearing contamination. Quite apparently, the Prudential Center development is in Boston
but not of Boston.

Despite the setback to Boston's harmonious growth dealt by this massive intrusion, the
Boston Redevelopment Authority's staff and advisers have continued to work with public
and private developers to bring about the "New Boston," and to assure that this new city
grew out of and formed one with the older city. By design review, by staff planning and
design, by persuasion they have worked to give the new city a shape and character which
would be distinctively Boston's.

The faceless glass box skyscrapers of New York and Chicago, and indeed of almost every
modern city on the earth, have until now largely been avoided. Efforts have been made to
keep and rehabilitate that which is worth saving and see that the new was tied in scale and
design with the old. And all this time the city has given vigorous encouragement to new
growth and activity.
GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 2
Indeed, it has never been the aim of the BRA or of Boston's architects, despite the fine
things existing here to see Boston treated as a city-museum.

In late November 1967, the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of Boston's
and New England's largest companies, announced a new headquarters building to rise
790 feet high and to be situated on the southeast corner of Copley Square. The uneasiness
which greeted this announcement could not be fully allayed by the realization that the
company was about to make a $75 million investment in Boston. Readers of the AIA
JOURNAL can get some idea of this proposal from an article in the March 1968 issue.

The BRA staff and its Design Advisory Committee, comprising in addition to Chairman
Stubbins, Nelson W. Aldrich. AIA; Lawrence B. Anderson, FAIA; Pietro Belluschi, FAIA:
and Jose Luis Sert, FAIA, studied the project carefully and raised five major issues
connected with the design of this large building on this site:

1. The project requires an increase in the floor area ratio to nearly three times that provided
for in the zoning ordinance: The Committee thought that such a flagrant breach as this
created an indefensible situation which will make the code ineffective as a tool for regulating
the use of land in the public interest.

2. It has always been assumed, even in the national competition for the redesign of Copley
Square, that the building height along the square would remain somewhere around 100
feet, The committee thought that this was still a most important concept and that to increase
the building height adjacent to the two greatest architectural monuments in Boston would
destroy them as the important and beautiful objects the world admires and appreciates.

3. "Although the architects have tried valiantly," the committee reported, "nothing can
diminish the bulk and height of their proposal - not even mirrors. Since there are two broad
sides as well as two narrow ends, this building from many points of view will be far larger
in appearance than the Prudential Tower, already too massive for our city. Further, it will
have no scale due to the concept of a smooth glass enclosure.

4. The BRA design advisors were very concerned about the mirror-like surface. This concept
had never been tried on such a scale in an urban location. It would be difficult to predict all
the problems it might create, such as the sun's reflection as a discomfort to pedestrians
and motorists, to say nothing of the glare and heat load reflected to other buildings and
their occupants. "We are concerned," they stated, "that this may be a contrived solution,
even though expertly done, that may not wear well in the future."

[Photo] Tower and neighbor, photo left, and context view from across Charles
River.

.5. Finally the committee suggested that the new open space which is a resultant of the
design idea would not invite public use and would dissipate the meaning and satisfaction
GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 3
of the restoration of historic Copley Square.

Despite the adverse weight of this informed opinion, the BRA Board of Directors, an
appointed body of citizens, voted four to nothing (with one notable abstention) to approve
the project. A second review by the Design Advisory Committee was held, which confirmed
earlier findings and concluded:

"We think that the architects have been given a task to which no reasonable solution can
be found under the presently imposed physical conditions. However, we think that if these
conditions can be modified, the Hancock company can satisfy their building requirements
in a way that will enhance their existing properties, have an acceptable floor area ratio,
and be a significant and important landmark in the city, while at the same time preserving
the prime things that make Boston Boston."

The BRA Board of Directors again acted by the same vote to recommend the project and
to support the request for a variance from the Board of Appeal.

At this point, the Boston Society of Architects, an AIA chapter spoke in behalf of the
profession, since the professional voice of the city had been silenced by the over-ruling
vote of the BRA Board, to ask time for proper study and evaluation of the proposal. There
followed a meeting between a special committee of the society -- the Boston Society of
Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Planners were also represented -- and
the architects of the proposal to become fully acquainted with the project.

This committee came to substantially the same conclusions which had previously been
reached by the BRA's Design Advisory Committee.

Upon adoption by the Boston Society of Architects' board, a resolution opposing the John
Hancock's petition for a variance was transmitted to the Board of Appeal. The leaders of
the New England Chapter of the AIP produced a carefully reasoned study citing the impact
of this huge development on the city and the obligations imposed by it on both developer
and city government. They, too, opposed granting a variance for the project and suggested
exploration of ways of amending the zoning code to achieve a flexible approach for planning
of large-scale developments. As of this writing, a zoning amendment for this purpose is
under study by the city and is receiving support from the Boston Society of Architects.

There are many implications raised by a project of this magnitude which the professions
cannot evade. Everyone takes it for granted that we want to live in a vital and prosperous
city. But if Boston aspires to build a skyline on the scale of New York and Chicago, is the
city ready to accept congestion on the New York or Chicago scale at street level and below
it?

Indeed, with Boston's tighter downtown street system our congestion can be expected to
be more severe, public transportation in the Copley Square area is already overloaded.
Huge single-use complexes such as the John Hancock will add new peak loads to daily
GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 4
rush hours.

Great physical size introduces problems on scales not previously experienced. We are
now learning that large buildings have profound effects on the microclimate at their bases.
Hancock Tower will cast its shadow reaching at times across the full width of the Back Bay
to the Charles River.

All glass-surfaced buildings reflect glare at times and the Hancock's semi-mirrored surface
will possibly differ not in kind but only in the degree of such reflection. Most important is the
fact that all high buildings generate winds at their bases: the higher and the more isolated
the building, the more dangerous these winds become. The tower of the Prudential Center
encountered such problems as might have discouraged another building in Boston on this
scale. The open plaza at its base has now been altered to a glazed arcade.

We must expect serious wind problems at times both in Copley Square and in the new
Hancock Place if this tower is built. The architects are aware of this danger and are seeking
to reduce it. It is scarcely comforting to recognize that these problems will abate naturally,
as we are told, when the entire neighborhood is developed with buildings of this scale.

Among the crucial questions for architects and for Boston raised by the John Hancock,
none is more important than that of scale. It is a question that generates a number of
subquestions which need to be addressed. Do, for example, the Back Bay - South End
sections of Boston have consistent scale?

How can elements of higher density to meet the needs of business growth be introduced
between the homogeneous neighborhoods lying north and south? What ties and transition
elements can be introduced to help the new and the old to meet and coexist? Indeed, what
is the limit of bulk that can be introduced?

Here the Hancock Tower, despite the subtle twisting of its shaft and its self-effacing mirrored
skin, fails to carry conviction that it has found the proper measure. If built in its present
form, it remains to be seen whether it would enhance Copley Square as its authors insist
or reduce the square and its buildings to leftover Victorian toys.

[Photo] The Hancock Tower and, lower right, Trinity Church and Copley
Square.

Scale considerations are important in relation to Copley Square, an urban space where
building heights have been regulated for many years. But architects are asked to accept
that once a building rises above the limits of vision, when seen from across the square, it
is immaterial how high it goes. This argument loses its impact when we realize that the
superbuilding will be seen from many other parts of the city as well.

The Hancock building, like the Prudential, will be a towering presence for residents of the
South End and Back Bay and a beacon on the Boston skyline (especially with the vogue
GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 5
for illuminated lettering on buildings). When seen from the Cambridge side of the Charles
River Basin, the disparity of scales is most striking.

Boston's new zoning code, like that of most other American cities, regulates density by
means of the floor area ratio method. But such regulations for the downtown area of Boston
are lower than in most other big cities, reflecting the physical and economic pattern of past
development.

Although their recognized purpose is to create order and organization of the city's structure
for the public benefit, these regulations serve a design purpose by introducing a unit of
measure which brings future development into relationship with the past. They are under
heavy pressure from various quarters; and the Boston Society of Architects is concerned
that the John Hancock matter may set a precedent for a growing stream of exceptions.

Rapid urban growth and the great size of new projects have found architects at times ill-
prepared to exercise the full control needed or even to make their voices heard. We know
that the new scales of building must emerge corresponding to the growing size and needs
of our institutions. Our task is to look for ways to shape this new growth which will enhance,
not damage, the quality of life in the city. It is never easy to question a multimillion dollar
increase to the city's tax base, but it is harder still to see the mistakes of other cities
repeated in one's own.

Boston's physical environment is in many ways unique among American cities and
contributes much to the quality of life here. The city has long been able to combine cultivation
with prosperity. The intelligence, talent and, most of all, concern of architects are essential
to secure a prosperous future without losing Boston's unique qualities.

GSD 7212 Issues in the Practice of Architecture Jackson - The Architect’s Role page 6