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125 Summer Street

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1989–1990, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.
  • 125 Summer Street (Peter Vanderwarker or Antonina Smith)

Incorporating elements from the Victorian commercial buildings at its base, this twenty-two-story tower may serve as a case of contextualism in response to historic preservation. A product of the postmodern era, the structure stands on a prominent site across from the South Station Transportation Center (FD26). Composed of gray granite, vertical glass strips, and cast stone, the tower rises like a gigantic column from its lower level of nineteenth-century, five-story brick and granite buildings. Its crowning pedimented aediculae are almost parodies of 1920s skyscrapers. A six-story brick ventilator shaft for the old Central Artery incongruously exists alongside. The lobby is a predictably luxurious space lined with multicolored marbles and opening to a flat-roofed rotunda.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan
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Data

What's Nearby

Bedford Block
Church Green Building
State Street Financial Center
Fiduciary Trust Building
99 Summer Street

Citation

Keith N. Morgan, "125 Summer Street", [Boston, Massachusetts], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-FD24.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Massachusetts

Buildings of Massachusetts: Metropolitan Boston, Keith N. Morgan, with Richard M. Candee, Naomi Miller, Roger G. Reed, and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, 72-72.

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