Now online is a photo collection of my visit to Boston last month for a studio field trip. Boston was an incredible place to explore – in addition to seeing our project site in Cambridge (read my response to our site visit on our studio blog), highlights included the ICA, walking tours of MIT and Harvard, and a day trip to see Louis Kahn’s Exeter Library in New Hampshire. Most of all I enjoyed seeing the different neighborhoods and the diversity of historic and contemporary architecture Boston has to offer. My first time to the city, I found the modern financial district built within the confines of the historic winding street system particularly interesting.
Boston appeared to be a very clean and pleasant city, not quite like the other big cities I’ve been to on the East Coast. It felt rather low-key for such a large city, perhaps in part due a lack of congruency because of the harbor and the Charles River separating distinct areas. Also there is an overall scale to much of the city that provides for the human and pedestrian experience, rather than the automobile so familiar city noises of “hustle and bustle” seem to be mostly absent.