Sullivan's travels come home

World Trade Center West, the signature building of Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, may be my favorite of the diversely creative palette of buildings that kicked off the development of the city's Seaport District but unfortunately failed to inspire future designs of comparable originality there. For me, there are two reasons why this postmodern masterpiece rises above the rest.

Seaport World Trade Center, Boston. Photo by SeaportBostonHotel (CC BY-SA 4.0).

For one, it was designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood (KMW) in their signature postmodern style of squared columns articulating and monumentalizing building structure in the classical column tradition, but with the geometric simplicity of those Cuisenaire rods many of us learned mathematical concepts from (or just built things with) in school. 

This gives World Trade Center West an outstanding expression of structural honesty in the soar of its verticality, unlike its undistinguished neighbors, Seaport Boston Hotel (above, center) and World Trade Center East (above, left), whose brick and sandstone cladding largely obscure their structure in a rather pompous fashion—and especially unlike the steel-and-glass skyscrapers that largely dominate Seaport's streetscape now. KMW used brick and a cantilevered cornice on World Trade Center West to recall the historic brick warehouse buildings of nearby Fort Point Channel, and the curving western façade allows more of its offices picturesque waterfront views, with a nod to the brick bowfront architecture of Beacon Hill and the South End as well as the billows of waves and ship sails. "The form, language and materials of the building relate to the maritime character of the site," according to KMW's website.

Wainwright Building (1891, Louis Sullivan), St. Louis, MO.
Photo by W. LeMay (CC BY-SA 2.0).

World Trade Center West also recalls the brick high-rises of Louis Henry Sullivan—my second reason for making it the cream of Seaport's crop. As the virtual inventor of the skyscraper, Sullivan went for an honest, organic expression of the skyscraper's structure and the upward soar of its verticality, hence the brick piers culminating in Celtic-inspired floral ornamentation at the cornice, giving the impression that they are growing up like flowers. That was what Sullivan meant by "form follows function": the soaring vertical form of a skyscraper is shaped by its function as a tall building housing multiple offices, yet it stands as a monument to progress — upward mobility, and the necessity to build taller on limited footprints to house increasing populations of workers. For that was the proper function of the skyscraper, in Sullivan's mind, which gave it its monumental form.

Interestingly enough, Sullivan was born in Boston, but never practiced there. He detested its architecture for being too cramped and old-fashioned for his taste. Ever the innovator, he was drawn to the from-scratch reconstruction of Chicago following its Great Fire of 1871, where he could leave his own imprint on a new city in the sky. So I'm grateful that KMW was paying tribute to Sullivan's Boston origins with their World Trade Center West. This, in effect, brought him home to the city he had abandoned, to show what an impact he had, both in the new Chicago and now in the new neighborhood built from scratch in Boston — the Seaport District.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!

Sources:

Gustafson, Amy, "Influential Designer: Louis Sullivan," PureModern, https://www.puremodern.com/blogs/news/influential-designer-louis-sullivan?srsltid=AU7gw4UuJ9OdO61K47prPAZWuE5OfOEYGSt4TJ3Kw_ZII5sVvldnF0vK

Hisgett, Tony, "Wainwright Building, St. Louis," GPSmyCity, https://www.gpsmycity.com/attractions/wainwright-building-10963.html

"Louis Henry Sullivan," Highbrow, https://gohighbrow.com/louis-henry-sullivan/

"Louis Henry Sullivan – Architect (1856-1924)," Irish Stew Podcast, April 14, 2024, https://www.irishstewpodcast.com/blog/louis-henry-sullivan-architect-1856-1924/

"Louis Sullivan," Wikipedia, last edited on 11 October 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivan

"Seaport Hotel and Seaport World Trade Center, Wikipedia, last edited on 31 July 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaport_Hotel_and_Seaport_World_Trade_Center

Stott, Rory, "Spotlight: Louis Sullivan," ArchDaily, September 3, 2018, https://www.archdaily.com/544355/spotlight-louis-sullivan

"Wainwright Building," Wikipedia, last edited on 11 October 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainwright_Building

"World Trade Center West," KMW Architecture, https://www.kmwarch.com/world-trade-center-west

"World Trade Center West," MIT Museum, 2002, https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/architectural-site/world-trade-center-west-1686

Shaping spaces

Duller colors?

Try clashing shapes.

This office-boardroom at 315 on A, ADD Inc.'s new apartment complex in South Boston's Seaport District, is so confined to metallics, mutes, neutrals, blacks and whites it would put conferees to sleep in a flash were the geometries not as creatively flashy as they have turned out to be. 

Tan rectangular wall panels contrast sharply with white starburst ceiling panels, which in turn cut lighting glare for a mellow, diffuse ambiance that uniformly unifies all opposites throughout the space. Dull-brown seats get a jolt of excitement from shiny, sheeny stainless steel legs. The sinuous curves of the chairs pose a soft, cool challenge to the hard-edged squareness of the wall panels — as well as a dark counterpoint to the latter's lightness, while sharing a common woodgrain characteristic. Yet the wall panels have their hip side too: random asymmetry, in contrast to the symmetrical precision of the star-cluster. 

The glass transparency of the circular table-top grants us breathing room from the opaque solidity of everything else, giving the space more of the open feel it needs for open round-table discussions, interpersonal connections, free exchange of ideas.

As do the sliding glass doors. With their "come on in" transparency, these "French" doors and windows signify the use of the twin office-boardrooms as common areas open to all residents at 315 on A. 

These mobile glass partitions also continue the lobby's fluid, light-filled openness into the offices while shaping the spaces as private retreats when needed as such.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!