Boston City Hall Competition, Boston, Massachusetts, Perspective Drawing

The Boston City Hall Competition was the first modern competition for a major public building in the United States, and it was won with an entry from the Boston firm Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles (KMK) for a brutalist-style concrete building with massive upper floors cantilevered over a large red brick square. Although controversial for its scale, the building was an influential model of modern civic monumentalism. While Chicago architect Harry Weese often worked on the monumental scale, including the Metro stations of Washington D.C., his design for the Boston City Hall took a different strategy. Opposed to KMK’s indeterminate facade, Weese’s entry presents a clear functional division of spaces linked to the essential structure of the building. Offices occupy a large rectangular volume with a rigorous grid of windows, and subsidiary functions are located in a smaller solid-brick wing. Between these two elements, Weese designed a tall tower that marks the building’s entrance and recalls the traditional clock towers or campanili of Europe.