ABC: Apple, Bohlin, and the Commission

Sketch of the proposed Boylston Street Apple store.

Some interesting comments on this page as well:

This probably won't mean much to people who don't live or work in Boston's Back Bay, but I'd like to take this opportunity to reiterate how much the Back Bay Architectural Commission utterly sucks. I just finished 18 months working in the building Apple wants to tear down, and all I can say is I'd be more than willing to help rip that eyesore down. The place is a pit, inside and out, and - as Apple pointed out - has zero historical significance. And it literally stinks, as in smells bad from the mold and god knows what else growing in the basement.

I can't imagine what the BBAC is complaining about here: there's no reason to keep the building, and if they're opposed to modern design I have to boggle at the hypocrisy when you consider the design of 801 Boylston Street (2 stores down) and the massive and ugly Mandarin Oriental hotel under construction directly accross the street .

The best thing that could happen to the back bay is to get rid of the geriatric Marlboro Street idiots that make up the BBAC - they are responsible for limiting Boston's economic development, from blocking Planet Hollywood moving into 801 Boylston to virtually ensuring the death of the Hynes Convention Center by blocking a number of businesses that would have attracted convention goers.


and:

Does anybody know if the Apple's architect is still Bohlin Cywinski Jackson? Does anybody care? It's still a shock to me that these type of articles only call it "Apple's" new design. The architect holds just as much responsibility (if not more) as to whether the design goes through or not. And as a side note, the design is not "extreme" at all. It's in a very refined Modernist style that's been around for over 50 years.

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Raise the Roof

This recent essay in the NY Times about why society fights over architecture so much.

snip:
Often quite wrongly, architecture is equated with political beliefs. Flat roofs have been associated with modernism and progressive politics, while the use of dated historical styles is believed to embody traditional values. When the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron were hired by the University of Texas to design a campus art gallery in 1998, Tony Sanchez, a fund-raiser for George W. Bush, engineered their resignation because they refused to adopt the Spanish colonial style, which he, as a member of the university's board of regents, found most fitting.