While members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, have tended to think of The Mother Church buildings primarily from a denominational standpoint, it is illuminating to hear how landscape architects committed to improving the quality ... of urban life think about The Mother Church site. Gary Hilder-brand is an accomplished and articulate landscape architect and a principal of Douglas Reed Landscape Architecture, Inc. Gary brings to the Restoration and Renewal design team a particularly inspired sense of the civic presence of The Mother Church site, and of how that presence has evolved over the last century. We'd like you to know some observations Gary shared with us during a recent conversation:
"The Mother Church site has a long history of projecting its civic presence, and that is continuing to develop in this latest renovation program. What I mean by "civic presence" is participation in shaping the city for the larger good, making a positive contribution to the life of the city and to the citizens in it.
"The location of the Original Edifice was somewhat surprising in 1894. It was not on a major thoroughfare, but was embedded in a neighborhood two streets in from Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues, in the midst of recently filled-in swampland. It was part of the westward movement of the city. In 1905, the Extension monumentalized the presence and strength of The Mother Church. This certainly paralleled the Church's growing religious importance, and also helped establish the importance of the intersection of Massachusetts and Huntington Avenues. (Massachusetts connects Boston with Cambridge via the Harvard Bridge, and Huntington connects the financial and government districts with the suburban expansion westward, along the railroad corridor.)
