First Church in Boston

Although some of Paul Rudolph's earlier Massachusetts projects, like the Jewett Arts Center and the Blue Cross Blue Shield building, were deliberately designed to be in conversation with surrounding buildings, each of those structures was a standalone building in its own right. The First Church project was different.

The original church was a puddingstone gothic revival structure designed in 1867-68. This building 'looked' like a traditional church and served the congregation for 100 years. A bad fire in 1968 destroyed much of it, although a tower, steeple, and part of the facade on the east side were salvageable. The church initially considered a number of local traditional and modernist architects for the rebuild, including Marcel Breuer, José Luis Sert, and Walter Gropius. The architectural selection subcommittee wanted "a young and fresh approach; a building that is bold and daring" (from the First Church history page). Rudolph was ultimately awarded the project.

The design had to incorporate Rudolph's design sensibilities, the programmatic needs of the congregation and church administration, and the church's budget - a push and pull that Rudolph would have been used to navigating with any of his clients. But there was the complication of the existing tower and facade. Gothic revival puddingstone is very much not Rudolph's style, but whatever he built wouldn't just exist in the same neighborhood as the 1868 structure: it would be literally attached to it.

The exterior and the interior of the main chapel make extensive use of split rib concrete blocks, which give the overall effect of the corduroy surfaces for which Rudolph is known. As modular precast units, the split rib blocks are much easier and cheaper to work with than actual bush-hammered concrete (which is what you see on the Boston Government Service Center and Yale Art + Architecture Building).

Rudolph made used of angled and faceted forms throughout the project, with hexagonal shapes (or forms that started off hexagonal and evolved into slightly more complex shapes) providing organizing principles inside and out. Inside the building some areas of Rudolph's concrete ribs are filled with strips of copper with the names of church members on them; from a distance this makes it look like light is shining through the concrete as one moves around the space. Reddish orange tones used on the interior are continued on the underside of the exterior roof overhang.

From the outside the building is mostly long and low, with the large concrete mass of the main chapel providing a counterpointing western bracket to the original eastern tower. A small grassy area with a series of low steps in the front was envisioned as an amphitheater - and, of course, another opportunity for Paul Rudolph to indulge his love of stairs.