Church Centre For $7l Million

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 12

Church Centre For $7l Million

SWEEPING new plans to construct a 15-acre church centre for the expanding world headquarters of the Christian Science movement in Boston have been announced. The church’s directors say the new centre can no longer be postponed in view of the church’s expanding activities. A master plan—prepared for the church by a leading firm of architects and city planners, I.M. Pei and Associates of New York, — also covers an additional 16 acres of land partially owned by the church around the centre.

On this surrounding land, the plan calls for leases to private re-developers to construct 3500 new middleincome apartment units, retail shops, office space, improved pedestrian ways, and underground parking facilities. The cost of this privately-developed phase is estimated at 63 million dollars or more. The total project area—combining both church and private sectors—covers 31 acres and would be constructed in stages over a period of 10 years. Details of the proposal are being worked out in close co-operation with Boston city officials to co-ordinate the project with the city’s extensive urban renewal plans. The first project will be the 8 million dollars “church centre” expansion—including a new 22-storey administration building, with 7 acres of open landscape area and an underground garage for 600 cars. Expansion room is also planned for the existing publishing house —which now issues periodicals in 13 languages besides books, records,

and a daily newspaper, The “Christian Science Monitor.” The focal point of the entire centre will continue to be the Original Edifice (built in 1894) and its large whitedomed extension (completed in 1906) —generally recognised to be among the world’s great church buildings. They were built under the leadership of the movement’s Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, and remain in use for church services, public lectures, the annual meeting of members, college student conferences, and many other church activities. The location of the project is a large triangular plot in Boston’s Back Bay region—bounded on one side by the

Prudential Centre, and on the other two sides by Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues, which meet to form an apex at one of the city’s busiest intersections. It is part of an area that is gradually becoming one of the world’s leading cultural areas. Within one square mile of land, it contains Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, “Symphony Hall,” Horticultural Hall, public library, civic auditorium, the New England Conservatory of Music, Jordan Hall, North-eastern University and the Boston University theatre. The Prudential Centre contains a 52storey office tower, a 29storey hotel, and apartment towers, connected by extens-

ive shopping malls and plazas. Special attention was given by the architects to the scale of the Christian Science project in relation to surrounding buildings, as well as its impact on the community as a whole. One of the primary effects

which the project is expected to have is the “revitalisation" of residential sections in the area. The emphasis wiU be heavily on middleincome housing in contrast to the preponderance of luxury-apartment construction in other parts of the Back Bay.