# CLASSIC ARCHITECTURES /// Boston Government Service Center by Paul Rudolph
Published
I just took advantage of a short trip to Boston to accomplish an architectural pilgrimage that led me to visit the Government Service Center, built in 1971 according to a design by the great Paul Rudolph.
This building’s concrete brutalism made it elected “ugliest Boston’s building” which won’t disappoint anybody as architects seem to be always more interested in beautiful ugliness than in ugly beauty. The Government Service Center is a piece of city in itself similarly to the amazing Barbican in London. It proposes piazzas and courtyards above a car park protected by the “body” of the building which allows accesses in a more or less porous way. An accentuation on its labyrinthine scheme could have even led it to acquire the spatial complexity of a third brilliant piece of brutalist architecture, the housing complexes of Ivry sur Seine (Paris) and Givors (Lyon) by Jean Renaudie (see previous articles 1 & 2)…
To go further, see the very rich data bank about Rudolph on the Library of the US Congress’ website
