Urban Life

The city went on an international contest to select the design for Boston’s “New City Hall.” After receiving a total of 256 entries, a panel of judges picked the winning design, a collaboration between Gerhard Kallmann, Noel McKinnell and Edward Knowles, in May 1962.

Admirers of the Swiss-French architect known as Le Corbusier and his modernist designs, such as La Tourette monastery in France, the trio’s exposed concrete, nine-story design — with the City Council Chamber and Mayor’s Office both projecting out over the plaza — was constructed almost exactly according to plan, said Foley, “which is pretty rare.” In their decision, the judges raved about their “daring yet classical architectural statement” that went above and beyond their criteria for the project and clearly defined “the areas of heavy public contact and the areas devoted to ceremonial functions.”

“Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles did have an idea that this would be a very democratic building,” Pasnik said. “They saw it as open. There’s very large columns that allow you to enter into the building in multiple ways. It doesn’t work like that anymore, but that was the original idea of that.”