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Can This Flawed Brutalist Plaza in Boston Be Fixed?

The chain-link fences are finally down at Boston’s long-closed Government Services Center, thanks to some clever design updates.
Architect Stephen Moore devised a series of curved steel panels that add significant height to the edges of the plaza and a contemporary take on the Great Society facade, with circular cuts in each panel that look like they could almost fit over the concrete ridges just behind them.
Architect Stephen Moore devised a series of curved steel panels that add significant height to the edges of the plaza and a contemporary take on the Great Society facade, with circular cuts in each panel that look like they could almost fit over the concrete ridges just behind them.Stephen Moore
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A vast public plaza inside one of the more polarizing Brutalist complexes in the U.S., designed by architect Paul Rudolph, is reopening after being closed for more than a decade.

On Thursday, Rosalin Acosta, the Massachusetts Secretary of Employment Labor and Workforce Development, hosted an official unveiling of Hurley Plaza at Boston’s Government Services Center (not to be confused with the nearby Government Center, which has a more substantial plaza revamp in the works). Chain-link fences—put in place after the plaza failed to meet contemporary building codes—have come down, and design changes have been made not only for safety, but to keep the spirit of Boston’s heroic concrete architecture alive, despite its flaws.