Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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Caption will go here tk xerit lore del utpatisit velisl "tying up" areas that now define the city. "The places that have now become important figures of nature, or adapted nature, within the city, and places that are really important to people's lives every day wouldn't be there had this 'parks movement' not happened between the 1870s and 1900," he explains of Olmsted's lasting impact. Today, Hilderbrand is on the same mission as Omsted, but in reverse: He's breaking through the fractured concrete of Boston's heavy industry and returning spaces to a natural state. No area illustrates this better than the Rose F. Kennedy Greenway, where Hilderbrand and others built public parks, promenades, and plazas on top of the Central Artery. "I think this work relates directly to that 19thcentury setup where we are looking at the land not as a cheap commodity, but really as a living and working surface," he says. "It will live and change and adapt and grow." So in designing the gardens and promenades on the Waterfront, Hilderbrand is considering more than simply the natural aesthetic. Rather, his design weighs the "working ecology" of the landscape, accounting for such elements as rising tides and storm surges. He talks about how the saplings he has planted will eventually provide a "significant urban canopy" for the next generation, bringing shade to the streets and sidewalks snaking through the Waterfront. In this way, Hilderbrand views his landscape architecture as having a more lasting impact than the surrounding buildings, which will in all likelihood be razed and replaced after a hundred years or so. The natural infrastructure Hilderbrand and others set in place on the Waterfront will serve as the foundation from which this new part of the city will evolve and continue to define itself. "I think we are doing well in rebuilding a vital Landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand designed Q Park (PICTURED) and helped green the waterfront district. part of the city," Hilderbrand says of the Waterfront. "In the not-so-distant future it will have its own identity just as the Back Bay does, or as Beacon Hill and Charles Street do." And so it is that the standard Charles Bulfinch set more than 200 years ago continues to guide and inspire generations of Boston builders, developers, designers, and architects. Though the methods may have changed— and the pay is certainly better—these men A bird's-eye view of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. share in the same great responsibility of shaping Boston that Bulfinch took upon himself all those years ago. What that future will look like one can only guess, but thankfully we can take comfort in knowing that the city is in good, capable hands. BC and then Harvard. Look to the Boston skyline and his firm's modern genius is up there, staring right back. While I.M. Pei was designing the JFK Presidential Library, his design partner Henry Cobb plotted the John Hancock Tower, a staggering 60-story parallelogram covered in mirrored glass. Bostonians met the skyscraper with a mix of shock and awe, a sentiment that became all the more uneasy when panes of the building's glass began crashing down onto Clarendon Street. The John Hancock Tower eventually settled into the Boston skyline and has become the signature, if you will, of contemporary architecture in the city, even providing an optical illusion of being a twodimensional building from certain angles. The reflectivity of the John Hancock Tower, designed by Henry Cobb, creates an optical illusion. BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 112-119_BC_F_Men_LateFall_13.indd 119 119 9/16/13 6:48 PM