Michael McKinnell, architect behing Boston's Brutalist City Hall, dies from COVID-19
03/04/2020.
[Boston] USA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
One week ago, on Friday, March 27, Noel Michael McKinnell, a co-architect of Boston Brutalist City Hall, died of pneumonia following a positive diagnosis for COVID-19. He was 84.
McKinnell, who was born on Christmas Day in 1935, in Manchester, England, received his initial architecture training at the city university, in 1958, first traveled to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship, earning an master’s in architecture at Columbia University, which he completed in 1960.
McKinnell, who was born on Christmas Day in 1935, in Manchester, England, received his initial architecture training at the city university, in 1958, first traveled to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship, earning an master’s in architecture at Columbia University, which he completed in 1960.
Michael McKinnell. Photograph provided by his family.
Boston Five Cents Savings Bank by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1973. Photgraph by Ezra Stoller/Esto
Boston City Hall by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1969. Photgraph by Ezra Stoller/Esto
Inside, Boston City Hall by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1969. Photgraph byEzra Stoller/Esto
Boston City Hall by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1969. Courtesy Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood Architects/Flickr via Creative Commons license Boston City Hall interior, archival photo
Boston City Hall by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1969. Archival photo United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID, via Creative Commons license
Night view, Boston City Hall by Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles, 1969. Photgraph byEzra Stoller/Esto
Early conceptual sketch showing site section and building’s courtyard configuration. Image: courtesy Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects
Rendering. Image: courtesy Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects
Competition sketch of the City Hall council chamber ‘hoods’. Image: courtesy Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects
The Boston City Hall in Massachusetts, USA, by Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles has just celebrated the 50th anniversary from its opening. Photography: Mark Pasnik, as published in ‘Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston’ (Monacelli Press)
At Columbia, two years later, he encountered the assistant professor German architect Gerhard Kallmann, who would soon become a mentor figure. The pair joined forces to enter a competition, to design a new city hall for Boston, and developed a design that drew on elements of the Brutalist movement
They won the City Hall competition out of nearly 300 entrants. Their unexpected victory, both were unlicensed and neither had designed a building on their own at that point, served as a launching pad for Kallmann McKinnell & Wood, a Boston office in 1962, a practice that would go on to practice for decades to wide acclaim.
Their joint practice continues to this day, with a rich portfolio of largely institutional buildings. Yet the firm—and McKinnell—remains associated with Boston City Hall, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year.
They won the City Hall competition out of nearly 300 entrants. Their unexpected victory, both were unlicensed and neither had designed a building on their own at that point, served as a launching pad for Kallmann McKinnell & Wood, a Boston office in 1962, a practice that would go on to practice for decades to wide acclaim.
Their joint practice continues to this day, with a rich portfolio of largely institutional buildings. Yet the firm—and McKinnell—remains associated with Boston City Hall, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last year.
"This isn’t a building where the pattern is frozen, where if you move one detail, you ruin everything. The process of democratic government is the meaning of City Hall. It should never be finished.”
The Boston Globe reported, 1969 description by McKinnell about the city hall building.
The city hall was fully restored by Boston-based architects Utile in anticipation of its 50th anniversary in 2019.
McKinnell was also a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). McKinnell taught at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning.
Aside from the city hall building, Kallmann McKinnell & Wood designed buildings including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences building in Cambridge, the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank, the Back Bay Station, the Boston's Hynes Convention Center, the Dickinson and Company corporate headquarters in New Jersey, and the School of Business and Public Administration at Washington University in St. Louis, The Boston Globe reports.
In 1988, describing Kallmann McKinnell & Wood's buildings, Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell described the firm's buildings:
“If there is a common theme, it is one of paradox and conflict. KMW’s buildings are never serene. There is usually, for one thing, a conflict between order and disorder in the floor plan, often in the sense that an orderly grid at the center disintegrates into something more random at the edges.”
