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How Boston City Hall was born

Fifty years after a groundbreaking competition, two architects look back at the project that polarized the city — and gave it a new lease on life.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of a decisive moment in that campaign: namely, an unusual design competition mounted by Mayor John F. Collins, in which architects were invited to imagine a brand-new, forward-looking home for Boston’s city government. And yet its relationship with the people of Boston has remained uneasy, even hostile: Many regard the building as unwelcoming, cold, and ugly, while those who work inside complain about its poor lighting, ineffective heating system, and labyrinthine layout. Despite the 20-year gap between them, the two became friends, united in their admiration of European architects like Le Corbusier, as well as their disdain for the “corporate modernism” then dominating New York City: sleek, dull skyscrapers held up by steel frames and wrapped in taut skins of glass.

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