How a building meets the ground can
reveal a great deal about the intentions of the architect. For example, Boston
City Hall, a building made nearly entirely out of concrete surrounded by a
brick plaza. How the City Hall meets the ground reveals what Kallmann McKinnel
and Knowles were intending. There are two obvious major details that they use
to interact with the ground. There is the first condition, where the vertical
brick, which isn’t structural, simply wraps the corner and seamlessly joins the
brick plaza. The second detail is where the concrete meets the brick plaza. As
we can see from the image, there is only a simple waterproofing joint and the
end of the brick. This condition shows that Kallman McKinneland Knowles saw the
concrete as being the more important material by allowing that face to read as
one continuing face, and the brick just stopping for it.
There seems to be an opportunity here to discuss what exactly "ground" is in this building. The brick extends from the plaza into the "mound." The concrete extends all the way through to the parking below.
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