John Hancock Tower

To achieve a symbiosis with Copley Square’s collection of historic buildings, including HH Richardson’s Trinity Church, this two-million square foot tower adopts a minimalist strategy. Stripped of all elements that might suggest a third dimension, the tower mutes the obtrusiveness of its enormous bulk and defers in all respects to the rich plastic qualities of its much smaller neighbors.

Acknowledging the extreme disparity in size between tower and church, the tower is positioned and shaped in such a way that the church becomes the autonomous center of the square and the skyscraper recedes, a contingent satellite in this composition. The tower’s rhomboidal plan reinforces this goal, emphasizing the planar and minimizing the volumetric presences of the building while effectively disembodying its enormous mass as seen from the square—an aspect reinforced by notches which, cut into the end walls, accentuate the building’s weightless verticality.

By virtue of the angled siting, a triangular space is created between the front of the tower and the east end of the church so that the sanctuary’s celebrated apse is highlighted, both by an open plaza in a dense urban setting and by mirrored images in the tower’s reflective curtain wall.