Reinventing the golden age ballpark and the pastoral ideal : a new home for the Boston Red Sox on Fort Point Channel

Abstract

Despite of the relationship between the development of the American city, the pastoral ideal (a longing for a more rural and simple past) and the game of baseball, the urban ballpark has been the focus of little attention, particularly in the fields of architecture, urban design, and American cultural history. The special qualities found in the ballpark, specifically the "golden age ballparks" (built between 1909-1914), offer valuable lessons in understanding the factors that have shaped and influenced our urban centers. The contribution of the pastoral ideal to the American urban experience, in the form of the ballpark, is an example of a genre of urban environments such as parks and cemeteries that reflect a concerted effort to incorporate an American pastoral heritage within the city landscape. The ballpark, however, is a unique example of this genre because it is a built structural landmark that symbolizes a blending of the natural, or pastoral landscape, with the brick, steel, and concrete of the city. This thesis is an attempt at distilling the architectural and urbanistic mannerisms and characteristics of the early twentieth century ballpark into a proposed design for the new "home" for the Boston Red Sox on Fort Point Channel. The primary objective is to determine how a new ballpark might be integrated into the urban fabric of Boston, accentuating the structure's special relationship with the city, while using as a guide the paradigm of the successful golden age ballpark (i.e. those which augment a sense of place, intimacy and a blending of the pastoral and urban). The design of a new ballpark on Fort Point Channel will have to address a dilemma in the conceptualization of a modern ballpark.