I promised these some time ago, so here they are – a wee photo essay on green building in Boston – back when it was so much easier to be green (so to speak)… Sorry I can’t get my hands on more heritage info (for those that are interested) – it appears that there is so much heritage in Boston that gems such most of these below go completely unrecognised…

Filene’s, in all its glorious designer discount goodness, is no longer here of course, the whole site (which includes the Downtown Crossing Transit Station) is part of a stalled-development awaiting an end-of-recession influx of capital…

I think this is kind of, well, cute – despite the Starbucks (which let’s face it, is at the premium end of the US coffee experience). It just goes to show too, that, in terms of the green tile cladding, it’s real hard to be original…

I like this a lot too, just across the alley way from the Starbucks above. More dietry iron here than in your average plate of greens…

The Back Bay area is a delight of historic townhousing – I am unsure as to the use of this conservatory-type appendage to someone’s mini-castle however…

This interests me for its bizarre juxtaposition of stone and ironwork, indicating that phase of history whereby the established ornamental styles were suddenly not up to the task. This isn’t quite as beautiful a resolution as some of the more surreal Viollet-le-Duc suggestions, but does have a certain I’m-not-sure-what in terms of the interlocking of base and tower, and to an extent, the same visual perception of structural ‘discomfort’…

m-d