500 Boylston Street is a 1.3-million square foot postmodern building located in the

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

section of Boston and part of the city's

High Spine {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) Boston's High Spine is an architectural planning design that arose in 1961, designed by the Committee of Civic Design, part of the Boston Society of Architects. The basic idea of the High Spine ...

, completed in 1989. It sits next to the landmark

Trinity Church, Boston Trinity Church in the City of Boston, located in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation, currently standing at approximately 4,000 households, was founded in 17 ...

. It dominates the western half of the city block bounded by

Boylston Boylston may refer to the following communities: ;Canada * Boylston, Nova Scotia ;United States * Boylston, Massachusetts * Boylston, New York * Boylston, Wisconsin * Boylston Junction, Wisconsin It may also refer to: * Helen Dore Boylston, au ...

, Clarendon and Berkeley streets and St. James Avenue. It was designed by

John Burgee __NOTOC__ John Burgee (born August 28, 1933) is an American architect noted for his contributions to Postmodern architecture. He was a partner of Philip Johnson from 1967 to 1991, creating together the partnership firm Johnson/Burgee Architect ...

Architects with

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

, with structural engineering by LeMessurier Consultants and MEP/FP engineering by Cosentini Associates, Inc. The construction project was managed by Bond Brothers. It cost $100 million to build. The site contains approximately of land area, with approximately of frontage on Boylston Street. The first six floors are

retail Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

and small office space. Above that there is a 19-story office tower with Class A office space. It has approximately of office space. It has an underground parking lot for 1,000 cars that it shares with 222 Berkeley Street.

Material

The structural design is made up of composite beams and girders supporting

steel deck Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

and

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

topping slab on a steel frame. The 25-story superstructure is founded on thick foundation mat bearing on clay. The 6-story low-rise is founded on spread footings,

hold down piles Hold may refer to: Physical spaces * Hold (ship), interior cargo space * Baggage hold, cargo space on an airplane * Stronghold, a castle or other fortified place Arts, entertainment, and media * Hold (musical term), a pause, also called a Ferma ...

(

tension piles Tension may refer to: Science * Psychological stress * Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression) * Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions * Voltage or ...

) and pressure slab designed to resist a

hydrostatic head When generating hydropower, the head is the distance that a given water source has to fall before the point where power is generated. Ultimately the force responsible for hydropower is gravity, so a hydroelectricity plant with a tall/high head can ...

of approximately . The

parking garage A multistorey car park ( British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a bui ...

is made up of

slurry wall A slurry wall is a civil engineering technique used to build reinforced concrete walls in areas of soft earth close to open water, or with a high groundwater table. This technique is typically used to build diaphragm (water-blocking) walls surro ...

construction. The building's distinctive design includes carved rose granite cladding with two-story windows, a vaulted copper roof line, and strong exterior column detailing. The design, by John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson as Design Consultant, also includes a main building entrance through a courtyard, framed on each side by two symmetrical wings, each faced with soaring columns.

Awards

* Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Building of the Year Award, 2005 * EPA's Sustained Excellence in Energy Management award in 2004 * Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Building of the Year Award, 2001 *

ENERGY STAR certification In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of he ...

Label, 2000 * Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Building of the Year Award, 1996

Television

500 Boylston Street is also seen on the television show ''

Boston Legal ''Boston Legal'' is an American legal drama and comedy drama television series created by former lawyer and Boston native David E. Kelley, produced in association with 20th Century Fox Television for ABC. The series aired from October 3, 200 ...

''. The fictional law firm Crane, Poole & Schmidt's Boston office is located on the building's 14th, 15th and a fictional 28th floor due to the building only having 25 floors. There are also no balconies attached to these floors where Boston Legal was set.

References

External links

Entry on SkyscraperPage

Entry on Emporis
{{Boston skyscrapers Office buildings completed in 1989 Skyscraper office buildings in Boston John Burgee buildings Back Bay, Boston Philip Johnson buildings