First Church of Christ Scientist
Before the first three lectures, I would have had no clue or knowledge of what site to pick to work with. I was not aware of things that were important in picking a site; things that were in plain sight. The lectures opened my eyes to many things that I would have never realized. It has only been about three lectures and I have realized already that I need to be more aware of my surroundings. The lecture has taught me to look for different types of patterns, or things that look like they are out of place. I have looked at an aerial view of a city many times, and every time I see intersections of different sections. I just accepted that the intersections were there but never thought about the reasoning behind that. I now have a better eye for interesting place because I know what to look for now but finding a site is still very complicated.
The site I chose will have a few interesting pieces of information I think. The site is one of the corners of a triangle shaped lot that seems out of place bordered by two different lots that intersect further down. I think there will be some information on this land formation because it does not seem like it was planned that way. I would like to find out how this structure of land came to be and why it was decided to be made that way. On this lot there is an interesting looking church with a garden and nice decorations in front of it. The church is the middle point of my site. To the north of this church there are buildings, including the prudential center, some commercial areas, and also some housing area. I described this part because I think that there is a big transition of type of buildings in such small space. The huge prudential building is the northern most building; below that there are a couple of shorter buildings. Then there is a transition to houses. There is a neighborhood that I had never noticed. The church is located below this neighborhood. All of this is enclosed in a space that is about one block by two blocks. This one block by two block space is not my site though. My site does not include the Prudential Center because I did not want to focus on that. Even though the Prudential Center is not part a part of my site, I still thing that this is an interesting organization of buildings. To the west of the church there is a strip of commercial area. There are several stores that are along the street that separate the church from this other lot of land. The stores are diverse; I remember seeing some food places and a hardware store close to it. I think that there might be a bit of history about why some of those stores are there. To the southeast of the church, there are more housing areas. These are the types of buildings that are enclosed in the site I chose. I think that the land use in this very tightly packed area is very diverse. There is a commercial area, church area, and housing area all within a couple of blocks. I would like to find out how and why that came to be. This is the main reason I chose this site.
My first encounter with this site was last year during a weekend when I had some spare time. I was walking from MIT to the Prudential Center. I had always walked down Mass. Ave. and then turned left on Boylston Street because that is where the Prudential is. That day though, I was feeling adventurous and decided to not turn left. I am glad I did not turn left because I realized that there was a very interesting church there. I also realized that my food options expanded a little because of the restaurant that are located there.
I look forward to working with this site and finding more information. I think this I a very interesting project that will open my eyes to many things and teach me lessons on many other things too.
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