Boston Preservation Alliance Celebrates Preservation’s Finest

Boston Preservation Alliance Celebrates Preservation’s Finest

On September 19, the preservation community joined together at Fenway Park for the Boston Preservation Alliance’s annual Preservation Achievement Awards. This year ten projects were honored, including the Boston Red Sox and architecture critic Robert Campbell, the latter of whom was honored with the Codman Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Mr. Campbell is currently the architecture critic for the Boston Globe, and frequently revisits the question “What makes Boston, Boston?”

The Red Sox were honored with the President’s Award for Excellence for their preservation of the venerable Fenway Park, a site that former Red Sox President Larry Lucchino called “America’s finest ballpark, and better now for the preservation community’s advocacy.”

The 2017 award recipients represented an array of project types across Boston’s neighborhoods, from the Boston Public Library’s renewed Johnston wing entrance in the Back Bay to the Paul Revere Education and Visitor Center in the North End and the Terminal Storage Building in South Boston.

For the first time, the Alliance honored a publication in its list of recipients.  The groundbreaking book Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston, by Mark Pasnik, Chris Grimley and Michael Kubo documents the architecture of Boston’s experience with modern architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Alliance also presented its Stewardship Award this year to the dedicated team of professionals overseeing the phased preservation of the First Church in Roxbury (including former HBI staffer Jeff Gonyeau).  Built in 1804, the structure is the oldest surviving wood frame church in Boston and an outstanding example of a Federal Style meeting house.

The awarded projects were all impressive, but HBI was especially pleased to see board member architect David Hacin and his design team win the award for new construction for Four51 Marlborough in the Back Bay.  “New infill amongst historic structures is one of the most difficult challenges architects face,” notes Greg Galer, Executive Director of the BPA.   “Four51 Marlborough shows that careful consideration of context and significant detailing can be respectful and appropriately referential to historic design while creating a thoroughly modern building.”

Congratulations to this year’s award recipients!