Date: 2010-01-13
Boston’s Highway in the Sky: Utopian Vision or Green Monster?
Wednesday, January 13, 7:00pm. Guest Speaker: Amy D. Finstein, Ph.D., Adjunct Instructor of Art History, Massachusetts College of Art and DesignThe recently completed Big Dig hinged on the demise of Boston’s elevated Central Artery, a six-lane steel and concrete highway that had divided the city’s downtown core from its waterfront since the late 1950s. Projected as a sleek steel ribbon weaving between buildings and across streets, the Central Artery’s design synthesized futuristic notions of multi-level cities cast by avant-garde architects, science fiction authors, and traffic engineers alike. This talk will unravel the ideological and architectural background of the Central Artery as a civic improvement, and will chronicle its metaphorical and literal fall from grace as manifested in the Big Dig. Refreshments provided by Trader Joe’s!Framingham Public Library, Costin Room, 49 Lexington Street.
More Info: http://www.framinghamlibrary.org