Wide angle view of Christopher Columbus Waterfront park. Personal archives, 2024.
I had the chance to visit and walk around the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in Boston, Massachusetts last March. Maybe not the ideal time, since it was at the very beginning of Spring and the plants and trees were not blooming yet.
I am sharing here some of my photos and a brief description from the park website:
"Located between Boston’s Commercial and Long Wharves, this site was once populated by industrial buildings that served the city’s shipping industry. In the 1960s the Boston Redevelopment Authority funded the construction of public spaces, including a “Walk to the Sea” from Quincy Market to the waterfront. In 1974 the landscape architecture firm Sasaki, Dawson & DeMay created a waterfront park on filled land that became the harbor’s public access point. The design drew on the site’s history, using cobblestones and brick paving, wooden structures, and a bollard-and-chain system along the water to mimic the old bulkhead. On the nation’s bicentennial, thousands watched from the newly dedicated park as the “Tall Ships” paraded into Boston Harbor.
In 1999 a new design by the landscape architecture firm Halvorson Company saw the installation of a new performance area and additional lawn space that opened up views of the harbor. Framed by Atlantic Avenue, the park is screened from traffic by groves of sycamores. A central lawn is bordered by a paved walkway that connects the park’s central features, including the Rose Kennedy Garden and an open promenade framed by Sasaki’s Lamella truss shade structure, which is draped in wisteria vines. A circular fountain demarcates the park’s southwest entrance. To the north, a linear brick path leading from the street to the harbor separates the playground and the Massachusetts Beirut Memorial (1992) from the lawn. In 2020, during a period of social unrest, the park’s namesake statue was beheaded and subsequently put in storage."
The oversized arbor or trellis in the Waterfront Park. Personal archives, 2024.
I am currently reading "Theory in Landscape Architecture", edited by Simon Swaffield, -University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002-, and to my surprise, there is an essay by Patrick Condon called "Cubic Space, Volumetric Space (1988)" (page 84) that compares the Piazzetta San Marcos in Venice with the Christopher Columbus Park.
Condon states that Cubist space is made by placing solids in space (I see it as a conceptual mistake), while volumetric space is made by enclosing space. Volumetric space can be small as well and is related to human scale. As an example, he shows The Piazzetta San Marcos, a flat empty plaza surrounded by buildings. And as a Cubist space, he explains the design of Christopher Columbus Park which is lacking of enclosure and the walking surface is not leveled.
The photos from Patrick Condon's article, depicting the Piazzetta of San Marcos and the Christopher Columbus Waterfront park. See the fountain that is missing from my photos, since I was walking on the other side. Personal archives, 2024
Regarding the changing walking level that he describes as "highly complex, a relief sculpture that prevents the participant from perceiving it as a floor", I have to say that apart from the staircase that I have taken coming from Quincy Market, and crossing Atlantic avenue, I have not noticed any significant slope. Of course, as seen in my first photo above, the grading is not flat, but not to the point of being sculptural. Yes I agree that this type of asymmetrical open design is more dynamic and the arbors (trellis) look like oversized sculptures that can be traversed. Compared to San Marcos, the landscape design offers a lot of visual stimuli.
Considering the strict meaning of the term "Cubism", I do not see that the Christopher Columbus park design could be labeled as this style. Mainly, because Cubists artists broke up an element (an object, a person...) and re-arranged it in an abstract morphology. This park has added elements on the ground, with a design criteria, but there is not a break up of a main idea.
Christopher Columbus Park, with the arbor on the right and the street on the left. On the background, some Downtown buildings. Note that the only "green" tree is this pine, while the rest of the trees are still bare. Everywhere I walked in Boston I have seen the same bare trees, I was wondering why there is no combination of species. Personal archives, 2024.
One of the arbors-trellis with the perspective towards Atlantic avenue. Personal archives, 2024.
The staircase from Atlantic avenue. Personal archives, 2024.
Facing the water, note the marine elements to determine a border which is not specifically for safety, at least the way I see it. The water is the park limit. Personal archives, 2024.
To Patrick Condon's examples I will add an intermediate one. This is a plaza inside Harvard Campus.
There are buildings surrounding the plaza (like the volumetric space) but at the same time there are some sculptural elements, geometrically arranged, where we can walk in between without a single point of view perspective (like the Cubist space he mentions).
Some are planters, some are like seats and the flat ground has the same concept with squares on the grass.
A contemporary plaza inside Harvard campus. Cambridge, MA. Personal archives, 2024.
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