Reading Boston's Architecture

Photographer Peter Vanderwarker at the
Custom House, Boston

For Boston Globe critic Robert Campbell, architecture is "all about the world being legible, being readable." From the elegant simplicity of the late Eighteenth Century Federalist State House to the bulky "brutalism" of the 1960's era City Hall, Boston's architecture has always been a reflection of the cultural aspirations of the people who built it. In the April 2002 episode, Greater Boston Arts spoke with Campbell, Bostonian Society curator Cynthia Robinson and architectural photographer Peter Vanderwarker to reveal the deeper meanings embedded in some of Boston's best-known buildings.