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

An 'A' for All-Encompassing

First it was "either-or" — either "traditional" or "modern" in building style. And what an odd couple of irreconcilable differences they made.

Then it was "neither-nor" — when "postmodern" tacked traditional details onto the modern cube, rekindling an old flame in a new age. And what a clash of architectural styles that made.

Now it's "both-and" — when new construction strains to be "contextual" with all buildings from all eras all around it, making it nondescript...

...or neighborly, as 315 on A is with the Boston Wharf Company's turn-of-the-20th-century warehouses, Atlantic Wharf's new glass high-rise, World Trade Center West's vertical brick piers, and much more in South Boston's Seaport District.

This new apartment complex picks up elements from all of the above — including the historic yellow-brick warehouse office of its architect, ADD Inc., down A Street — and merges them into a monument to Seaport's evolution from industry to innovation, wool manufacturing to waterside living, working-class scruff to high-class stuff.

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!