In 2015, we explored the various ways in which Boston is a palimpsest, through the lenses of six iconic Boston sites: the Back Bay Fens and the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Paul Revere House and North End, the Faneuil Hall area, the Boston Public Garden, and Copley Square. Through the Back Bay Fens area we can see two examples of attempts to tame the "urban wild"--Olmsted's Back Bay Fens project and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. While elements of both surely live up to the goals in mind that facilitated their existence, each has ways in which it has been desecrated, too. You will see how the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) carries with it an entire background of socioeconomic and cultural change in the Seaport District. Similarly, the North End, the oldest residential neighborhood in Boston, has gone through drastic cultural changes in the past few centuries, each of which has left its mark. Paul Revere, as is described, can even be said to be a human palimpsest.
Faneuil Hall is still a marketplace and a "node"--where people of all walks of life come together, often for very different reasons--as it was when it was built in 1743, but in a different way. This is one site where we can perceive the 'layers' of the city: desires as layers, maps as layers, urban expansion as layers. The Boston Public Garden exemplifies a multitude of envisioned layers, through the pans conceived for its creation. Lastly, Copley Square exhibits layers of purpose and layers of architectural development.
Each of these sites provides a relevant example of what makes Boston a fascinating place. It is not evident at first that the fancy Back Bay townhouses that today stand regally are built upon what was once swampland, or that what is now the vast Government Center was once a bustling neighborhood not dissimilar from the North End.
Most every material creation we see in Boston has or had a motive behind it, and this web of motives has conditioned the visible surface of the city. This is an often elusive point: it is easy to take the city at face value, and to have no second thoughts when you see an unusual curve in a street, or a colonial building standing next to a skyscraper. We hope that our exhibits will help you appreciate the many layers--both visible and invisible--that make up the urban texture of Boston today.
