Perkins & Will recently released details about and images of View Boston, the three-floor interactive observatory atop the Prudential Tower, which opened for visitors on June 15. P&W’s Boston studio designed the observatory for BXP, the 750-ft-tall building’s owner and the project’s developer.
The observatory provides a panorama of Beantown and its surrounding region. It has its own entrance within the Prudential Center, and elevators with Samsung screens and an interior sound system take visitors to the 52nd floor, named The View, where they can look onto the city vista through the letters of Prudential’s iconic signage.
To create this space, P&W’s team reconfigured the tower’s mechanical system and removed numerous suspended ceilings, walkways, and the solid panel behind the Prudential sign. These upgrades raised the ceiling height to 24 ft, from nine ft, filling the interior wraparound observatory with light.
Guests encounter “specific moments” on tour
The design’s simplicity and minimalism are articulated through a thoughtful placement of windows and doorways, and what P&W calls “a quiet materiality that uses reflectivity and subtle textural cues to guide guests from one episodic experience to the next.” An interior and exterior lighting program, designed in collaboration with LAM Partners, highlights the views and design features of the space.
Matt Pierce, P&W’s Principal who led the design of View Boston, elaborates that visitors encounter “specific moments of interest” as they tour the observatory. Perhaps the most daring allows visitors to step onto the edge of an outdoor roof deck that looks over Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. The observatory also features an indoor-outdoor bar, a restaurant, and numerous exhibits. Pierce says the architecture supports intuitive wayfinding, as do the observatory’s spaces themselves.
![View Boston's outdoor observation deck](/sites/default/files/inline-images/View%20Boston%20outside%20deck.jpg)
The Pru, which was designed by Charles Luckman & Associates and opened in 1965, has long been an indelible part of Boston’s skyline. But its aging systems required some upgrading to accommodate the addition of the observatory.
An upgrade to the tower’s original mechanical systems allowed BXP and the design teams to reimagine the observatory experience, while elevating the infrastructure to current sustainable, energy efficient standards. Updated cooling systems freed the interior space to house the window washing unit, allowing for the Cloud Terrace—an all-season exterior observation deck and hospitality area on the 51st floor—to take shape where there had been equipment. The installation of a new eight-foot-high frameless glass windscreen makes the outdoor roof deck comfortable and safe while offering a premium viewing experience.
Design features emphasize the view
![A lounge area within View Boston](/sites/default/files/inline-images/View%20Boston%20lounge.jpg)
Where possible, materials were chosen sustainably and locally to celebrate Boston’s history: for example, the flooring used in the Stratus cocktail bar on the 51st floor salvaged “Harbor Oak” made from the piers that formerly supported the once-popular Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant, which was demolished in 2007.
Other design strategies directed attention towards the view. There is an emphasis on glass, both mirrored and transparent. The décor in Stratus references the elements of air and water. The protected interior space flows seamlessly to the exterior seating area and observation deck through movable glass walls that open or close to suit the weather. Additional noteworthy design features include an edge-lit cast glass bar, created by Lucid Glass Studio and a lighting installation by Yellow Goat Design, featuring a reflective metallic canopy of varying heights that in the evening mimics stars in the night sky. Downstairs in The Beacon, the bar faces outwards and is flanked by mirrored columns with custom shelving that reflect the city below.
Working within the existing building limited the ceiling height in the dining area. A high-gloss panel system was designed for this ceiling to reflect light and add a feeling of openness. The floorplans allow for uninterrupted viewing, providing clear sightlines to windows and portals.
The observatory was designed for guest accessibility. Throughout the three stories of attractions, equity is achieved through tactile models of the skyline for guests with vision impairments, native audio systems for hearing support, quiet moments of rest away from the stimulating activity areas, and restaurant and bar seating tailored for easy wheelchair access.
Collaboration between the exhibition design and operations partners proved crucial to achieving the inclusivity goals of the project. (Programming in the exhibition spaces was helmed by JRA, an immersive technology design agency that’s part of RWS Global.)
![The View Boston exhibit takes up three floors.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/View%20Boston%20exterior.jpg)
The guest journey throughout the observatory features multiple touchpoints for education and storytelling:
•Boston 365, a 3D model of the city with rotating seasonal display content;
•Virtual Viewers and interactive itinerary-planning touchscreens on the 52nd floor highlighting various cultural and historical landmarks, which the guest can capture via his or her smartphone and form the “ViewPrint” travel guide for the region; and
•The Immersive Theater, a 260-degree theater showcasing the “Open Doors” film that highlights a variety of neighborhoods and attractions.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall Philadelphia, Pa.
Built in 1875 to serve as the art gallery for the Centennial International Exhibition in Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall stands as one of the great civic structures in Philadelphia. The neoclassical building, designed by Fairmount Park Commission engineer Hermann J. Schwarzmann, was one of the first buildings in America to be designed according to the principles of the Beaux Arts movement.
| Aug 11, 2010
Financial Wizardry Builds a Community
At 69 square miles, Vineland is New Jersey's largest city, at least in geographic area, and it has a rich history. It was established in 1861 as a planned community (well before there were such things) by the utopian Charles Landis. It was in Vineland that Dr. Thomas Welch found a way to preserve grape juice without fermenting it, creating a wine substitute for church use (the town was dry).
| Aug 11, 2010
Team Tames Impossible Site
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation's oldest technology university, has long prided itself on its state-of-the-art design and engineering curriculum. Several years ago, to call attention to its equally estimable media and performing arts programs, RPI commissioned British architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw to design the Curtis R.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Hanna Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio
Between February 1921 and November 1922 five theaters opened along a short stretch of Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, all of them presenting silent movies, legitimate theater, and vaudeville. During the Great Depression, several of the theaters in the unofficial “Playhouse Square” converted to movie theaters, but they all fell into a death spiral after World War II.
| Aug 11, 2010
Biograph Theater
Located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, Victory Gardens Theater Company has welcomed up-and-coming playwrights for 33 years. In 2004, the company expanded its campus with the purchase of the Biograph Theater for its new main stage. Built in 1914, the theater was one of the city's oldest remaining neighborhood movie houses, and it was part of Chicago's gangster lore: in 1934, John Dillin...
| Aug 11, 2010
Top of the rock—Observation deck at Rockefeller Center
Opened in 1933, the observation deck at Rockefeller Center was designed to evoke the elegant promenades found on the period's luxury transatlantic liners—only with views of the city's skyline instead of the ocean. In 1986 this cultural landmark was closed to the public and sat unused for almost two decades.
| Aug 11, 2010
Putting the Metal to the Petal
The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine was founded in 1985, but the organization didn't have a permanent home until May 2008. That's when the Michael Klahr Center, which houses the HHRC, opened on the Augusta campus of the University of Maine. The design, by Boston-based architects Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, was selected from among more than 200 entries in a university-s...
| Aug 11, 2010
Jefferson Would Be Proud
The Virginia State Capitol Building—originally designed by Thomas Jefferson and almost as old as the nation itself—has proudly served as the oldest continuously used Capitol in the U.S. But more than two centuries of wear and tear put the historical landmark at the head of the line for restoration.
| Aug 11, 2010
Let There Be Daylight
The new public library in Champaign, Ill., is drawing 2,100 patrons a day, up from 1,600 in 2007. The 122,600-sf facility, which opened in January 2008, certainly benefits from amenities that the old 40,000-sf library didn't have—electronic check-in and check-out, new computers, an onsite coffeehouse.
| Aug 11, 2010
American Tobacco Project: Turning over a new leaf
As part of a major revitalization of downtown Durham, N.C., locally based Capitol Broadcasting Company decided to transform the American Tobacco Company's derelict 16-acre industrial plant, which symbolized the city for more than a century, into a lively and attractive mixed-use development. Although tearing down and rebuilding the property would have made more economic sense, the greater goal ...