Symphony and Horticultural Halls

	Symphony and Horticultural Halls
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	Horticultural Hall
Location	Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°20′35″N71°5′8″W / 42.34306°N 71.08556°W Coordinates: 42°20′35″N71°5′8″W / 42.34306°N 71.08556°W
Built	1900
Architect	McKim, Mead & White; Wheelwright & Haven
Architectural style	Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals, Other
NRHP reference #	75000301 [1]
Added to NRHP	May 30, 1975

Last updated February 26, 2019

Symphony and Horticultural Halls are historic buildings at the corner of Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues in the Fenway–Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The halls were listed as a pair on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Symphony Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999.^[1]

Massachusetts Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts, and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. According to Boston magazine, "Its 16 miles of blacktop run from gritty industrial zones to verdant suburbia, passing gentrified brownstones, college campuses and bustling commercial strips."

Huntington Avenue is a secondary thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, beginning at Copley Square, and continuing west through the Back Bay, Fenway, Longwood, and Mission Hill neighborhoods. Huntington Avenue is signed as Route 9. A section of Huntington Avenue has been officially designated the Avenue of the Arts by the city of Boston.

Fenway–Kenmore is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. While it is considered one neighborhood for administrative purposes, it is composed of numerous distinct sections that, in casual conversation, are almost always referred to as "Fenway", "the Fenway", "Kenmore Square", or "Kenmore". Furthermore, the Fenway neighborhood is divided into two sub-neighborhoods commonly referred to as East Fenway/Symphony and West Fenway.

Symphony Hall

Symphony Hall is a large, rectangular performance space designed by McKim, Mead and White, and built in 1900 by the Norcross Brothers for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Italian Renaissance Revival building rests on thousands of wooden pilings embedded in filled land, and is one of the city's first steel-framed buildings. It is clad in brick, with limestone trim. Its main entrance, now on Massachusetts Avenue, was originally intended for arrivals by carriage, while the original main entrance was through the columned portico on Huntington Avenue.^[2]

Symphony Hall is a concert hall located at 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by McKim, Mead and White, it was built in 1900 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which continues to make the hall its home. The hall was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1999 and is a pending Boston Landmark. It was then noted that "Symphony Hall remains, acoustically, among the top three concert halls in the world ... and is considered the finest in the United States." Symphony Hall, located one block from Berklee College of Music to the north and one block from the New England Conservatory to the south, also serves as home to the Boston Pops Orchestra as well as the site of many concerts of the Handel and Haydn Society.

Norcross Brothers Contractors and Builders was a prominent nineteenth-century American construction company, especially noted for their work, mostly in stone, for the architectural firms of H.H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White.

Boston Symphony Orchestra American orchestra based in Boston

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood.

Horticultural Hall

Horticultural Hall was designed by Wheelwright and Haven and completed in 1901. It is a two-story Beaux Arts brick and stone structure, extending along Massachusetts Avenue opposite the current main entrance to Symphony Hall. It was built by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, founded in 1832, and originally housed its offices, as well as a lecture hall and exhibition spaces.^[3] It now houses the offices of Boston magazine and the Handel and Haydn Society, among others.

Horticultural Hall, at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, was built in 1901. It sits across the street from Symphony Hall. Since 1992, it has been owned by the Christian Science Church. It is the current home to The William Morris Hunt Memorial Library of the Museum of Fine Arts as well as to offices of Boston Magazine, 829 Studios, and Small Army, in addition to a performance space of the New England Conservatory of Music.

Massachusetts Horticultural Society organization

The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, sometimes abbreviated to MassHort, is an American horticultural society based in Massachusetts. It describes itself as the oldest formally organized horticultural institution in the United States. In its mission statement, the society dedicates itself to encouraging the science and practice of horticulture and developing the public's enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of plants and the environment. As of 2014, it had some 5,000 members.

<i>Boston</i> (magazine) monthly magazine

Boston is a monthly magazine concerning life in the Greater Boston area and has been in publication since the 1960s.

Historic significance of the pair

These two buildings are primary examples of a shift in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of Boston's cultural institutions toward spacious Back Bay locations. At the time of their respective constructions, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society were both major civic cultural organizations. The area in which they were built was until the 1880s part of Boston's Back Bay. This area, once tidally covered mud flats, had become a fetid cesspool by the 1850s, and was filled in to create new land for development over a three decade period. The orchestra and society were preceded by other major institutions, including the First Church of Christ, Scientist and the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, both of which built new facilities along Huntington Avenue, and were followed by New England Conservatory, the Boston Opera House, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Both the opera house and Mechanics Hall were demolished in the 1950s. These buildings are the most distinctive pair left from this period of development.^[4]

Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is most famous for its rows of Victorian brownstone homes—considered one of the best preserved examples of 19th-century urban design in the United States—as well as numerous architecturally significant individual buildings, and cultural institutions such as the Boston Public Library. It is also a fashionable shopping destination and home to Boston's tallest office buildings, the Hynes Convention Center, and numerous major hotels.

The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (est.1795) of Boston, Massachusetts, was "formed for the sole purposes of promoting the mechanic arts and extending the practice of benevolence." Founders included Paul Revere, Jonathan Hunnewell, and Benjamin Russell. Through much of the 19th century, the association organized conferences and exhibitions devoted to innovation in the mechanical arts.

The Boston Opera House was an opera house located on Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts. It opened in 1909 as the home of the Boston Opera Company and was demolished in 1958 after years of disuse.

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References

1 2 National Park Service (2008-04-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service.
↑ "NHL nomination for Symphony Hall". National Park Service. Retrieved 2014-06-11.
↑ "MACRIS inventory record for Horticultural Hall". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-06-11.
↑ "NRHP nomination for Symphony and Horticultural Halls". National Archives. Retrieved 2017-09-11.

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[nris-1] 1 2 National Park Service (2008-04-15). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service.

[2] "NHL nomination for Symphony Hall". National Park Service. Retrieved 2014-06-11.

[MACRIS_H-3] "MACRIS inventory record for Horticultural Hall". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-06-11.

[NRHP-4] "NRHP nomination for Symphony and Horticultural Halls". National Archives. Retrieved 2017-09-11.