Didona Associates - Landscape Architects, LLC
Submission 0106
Access the Village
Welcome to our vision of the new BCA Plaza, a place that surrounds you with
the rich offerings of the Boston Center for the Arts. While realizing your
goal to bring the “inside out”, we have created a place that reaches
out to the community and brings them in as engaged participants to experience
the programs, activities and visual presence of the BCA.
To significantly guide us while distilling our ideas, we looked through the
prism of the BCA’s four cardinal ingredients:
visual arts, performance, community and youth. The result is a visual performance
of color, light, texture, shadow and movement that will enthrall the community
and delight the children.
Our primary inspiration came from the visually stunning gathering place of
the Cyclorama that has surrounded visitors with a panoramic feeling of continuous
space since the 1880’s. The main elements that create the plaza are:
a curved pergola which guides the visitor to the main gathering place. The
winding paving patterns echo the form, a frieze of community drawings surround
the visitor with a living history of the BCA, and curvilinear screens define
separate, intimate spaces for the restaurants and gallery.
A supporting cast of design elements introduces the plaza to the community.
The cupola is now the main entry gazebo and the lobby to the plaza. Elegant
planter columns and colorful signage define other inviting entrances. The
theater’s marquee and the Cyclorama entrance backdrop a gathering place
for pre theater and intermission patrons. Trees and colorful plantings provide
seasonal performances. Finally, a subtle yet dramatic lighting plan transforms
the plaza into a dazzling jewel at night.
The Plaza is where the community and the BCA become a true cultural village.
