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Church Court Condominiums

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1891, Walker and Kimball; 1983, Graham Gund Architects; Carol R. Johnson and Associates, landscape design. 490 Beacon St.
  • Church Court Condominiums (Peter Vanderwarker or Antonina Smith)

After fire largely destroyed the Mount Vernon Church in 1978, its ruins, namely the tower and two street facades, were incorporated in a cluster of condominium components grouped around an inner courtyard. Graham Gund quoted from the surrounding Back Bay vernacular to create a pastiche of late-twentieth-century modernism. Location accounts for the appeal of this complex at the corner of Beacon Street and Massachusetts Avenue, bordering on the Harvard Bridge (see EC2), with a river view directly across to MIT. The Church Court Condominiums building remains an odd mixture of Romanesque Revival frame with many self-conscious details—the stone lintels and squares, the green balustrades, and the bright red bricks.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Keith N. Morgan

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