By sheer coincidence, Boston’s Blue Cross-Blue Shield Building (1960) was profiled recently on the same day in two quite different publications. In the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, the thirteen-story office tower was described as a landmark of modern architecture, a decisive renunciation of the glass curtain-walled architecture of the 1950’s. The article, by Timothy Rowan of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, rested on a mountain of patient archival research. Too patient, alas: just as Rowan’s article appeared, the New York Times revealed that the building is slated to be torn down to make room for an 80-story skyscraper.
The BC-BS Building (as it is known locally) was designed by Paul Rudolph, an early opponent of America’s postwar architectural modernism. Rudolph scorned the spread of the all-glass curtain wall, which might be lovely in a single example—permitting a rich play of reflections—but which becomes maddening when it takes over an entire street, a spectacle of mirrors reflecting other mirrors. The problem of modern architecture, he quipped, was “too many goldfish bowls, too few caves.”
