Boston City Hall
Architects gave it a 1969 AIA Honor Award; the public widely condemned it. Boston's Brutalist city hall has drawn fierce argument between professional praise and public contempt ever since.
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Designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles after winning a 1962 competition, this nine-story Brutalist block ranked among America's greatest buildings in a 1976 poll — yet Mayor Menino twice proposed replacing it. That gap between professional admiration and public contempt is exactly why it repays a look.
What to look for
- The facade shift: brick on the lower floors gives way to raw concrete as the building rises through its three tiers
- Protruding 'hoods' around the fifth-floor windows — that level holds the mayor's suite, council chamber, and councilors' rooms
- The upper stories cantilevering outward to wrap a central fourth-story courtyard, visible from the plaza below
Public areas occupy the first four floors; the building sits on City Hall Plaza in the Government Center section of Downtown Boston.
Boston City Hall is one of 31 sights worth the detour in Boston, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Boston pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Boston
- Museum of Fine Arts BostonFour hundred and fifty thousand works of art under one roof — one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas.
- TD GardenThe subway stops underneath it — TD Garden is built directly above MBTA's North Station, so you step off the train and you are already at the door.
- Harvard College ObservatoryOn the night of July 16-17, 1850, astronomers here made the first daguerreotype of a star — Vega — through a telescope that was the largest in North America.
- Fenway ParkThe oldest active ballpark in MLB, where a cramped city block accidentally invented some of baseball's most famous features.
- Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumIn 1990, thieves walked out with thirteen works worth $500 million — none have ever come back, and the case is still open.
- Boston Public LibraryJohn Adams' personal 3,800-volume library lives here — and any Massachusetts adult can walk in and access it.