Government Service Center (Boston)

The Government Service Center is an unfinished and controversial Brutalist structure by architect Paul Rudolph. It is one of the major buildings in the Government Center complex in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is comprised of two connected parts, the Charles F. Hurley Building and the Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center.

The building is not consistently known by a single name. Older sources variously call it the Government Service Center (though this name is easily confused with Government Center as a whole), the State Services Center, or the State Health, Education and Welfare Services Center. Many sources, especially contemporary sources, incorrectly use the Hurley or Lindemann names to refer to the whole.

The Hurley section houses the Division of Unemployment Assistance and other offices of state government. The structure includes a two level parking garage which is largely hidden from view beneath the courtyard.

Architecture

Rudolph was the coordinating architect on the project and was assisted by M.A. Dyer, Desmond & Lord, and Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott.

The building's exterior and interior surfaces make extensive use of Rudolph's signature ribbed, bush-hammered concrete, first employed in his earlier Yale Art and Architecture Building. This building's forms mingle the rectilinearity of the Yale design with extravagant curved forms like those in Rudolph's contemporary Endo Laboratories building on Long Island. Most of the curves are in the Lindemann section.

The building is listed in George Everard Kidder Smith's "Source Book of American Architecture: 500 Notable Buildings from the 10th Century to the Present".

The mural in the Hurley lobby, painted on plaster, is by Constantino Nivola.

History

The space for the building was cleared as part of the destruction of Boston's old West End in the name of urban renewal.

The design process began in 1962. Construction began in 1966 and lasted into 1971.

Though the building is very large (it occupies most of a large superblock), it is unfinished. The original design centered on a 23-story tower (shown in this image [http://prudolph.lib.umassd.edu/files/pr/282.jpg] ) which was never built. Swirling terraces in the courtyard, shown in Rudolph's site plan, were not built either. Much later, trees were planted in the courtyard and in the mid-1990's the adjacent space was filled with the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse which is in a rather different architectural style.

Other than the landscaping in the courtyard, the building has never undergone significant restoration or renovation and appears rather weathered and neglected today. The exterior plaza on the north side, shown in Rudolph's original drawings full of benches, trees, and people, is now a parking lot.

The building is featured in the 2006 film "The Departed". In the movie it is a police headquarters and most of the major characters work there. There are several shots of the exterior and long scenes filmed in the interior offices.

External links

* [http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1099/oc99aom.htm The Architecture of Madness] article on the suitability of the architecture for a mental health center
* [http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/building/0707_rudolph/text_0707_rudolph.html Building of the Month]
* [http://prudolph.lib.umassd.edu/node/14235 page at UMass Dartmouth]
* [http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/travel/escapes/23rudolph.html Paul Rudolph travelogue] with a paragraph on this building
* [http://www.universalhub.com/ugliest-building.html The Ugliest Building in Boston]
* [http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid44863.aspx All Fall Down] list of Boston's ugliest buildings
* [http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3179103 Photoshop contest on Fark] using photo of this building

Photos

* [http://eng.archinform.net/projekte/2497.htm entry at archINFORM] with photos from when the building was new
* [http://mw.smugmug.com/gallery/2633574_KEY5S photo gallery] including rare photos of the roof areas and interior spaces
* [http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/rudolph/rudolph3.html] page with photos
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/73172555@N00/sets/72157594564933525/ Flickr photoset] 147 photos
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanshnookenraggen/sets/72157603222827231/ Flickr photoset] 26 photos
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/tags/governmentservicecenter/ more photos on Flickr] 13 photos
* [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=stateservicecenter-boston-ma-usa entry at Emporis.com]