Boston City Hall has consistently appeared at the top of "ugliest buildings in America" lists since such lists began being compiled. It has also been described, by critics whose opinions are not usually dismissed, as one of the most important public buildings constructed in the United States since the Second World War.
Both assessments may be correct.
The Competition
The building was the result of an open design competition held in 1962. Kallmann McKinnell and Wood's submission was selected from 256 entries. The brief asked for a civic presence that would anchor Government Center, a new urban renewal district replacing the demolished Scollay Square. The architects provided that presence; whether it was the right kind is a question that has not been settled in sixty years.
The building sits on a vast brick plaza that urban designers have spent decades trying to animate. The plaza is the wrong scale for human activity: too large for the foot traffic that passes through it, too flat to create the spatial variety that would make it usable as public space. In winter, the wind off the harbor makes it inhospitable. The building itself overhangs the plaza in a way that creates deep shadows and, in certain conditions, increases the wind speed at ground level.
Interior Quality
Interiors tell a different story. The main hall is a sequence of spaces of genuine civic dignity. Light enters through the clerestory windows at unexpected angles. The concrete is raw but carefully detailed. The building does what a civic building is supposed to do: it makes you feel that you have entered a space designated for public business, distinct from commerce, distinct from private life.
The problem is that most people experience City Hall from its plaza, not from inside. A building that is experienced primarily as a facade and a shadow has a particular kind of failure baked in, regardless of what lies behind the facade.