Described by Boston Globe architecture critic Robert
Campbell as “the best of its kind in the country,” the Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center (BCEC) is unique in that, unlike typical “black-box”
convention centers with limited natural lighting, the main exhibition hall
features a light-infused space with soaring overhead volumes.The 2,000-foot-long building, designed by Rafael Viñoly
Architects PC in a joint venture with HNTB Architecture, is sited along the
boundary between the mid-rise commercial district near Boston Inner Harbor and
the residential neighborhoods of South Boston. To negotiate this transition,
the BCEC’s long, metallic, double-curved roof soars out over Summer Street to
the north and slopes gradually to a scale more appropriate to the residential
buildings to the south. Symmetrically located along either side of the main
hall, lower three-story blocks house eighty-four meeting rooms, prefunction
spaces, and food service facilities.Visitors enter through a wide portico beneath the Grand
Ballroom and its accompanying prefunction areas. Inside, the public concourse
affords views out over the main exhibition hall, a grand interior civic space
with a 516,000-square-foot floor, the curved main roof 75 to 100 feet above,
and lower 45-foot ceilings along either side. The exhibition hall subdivides
into three smaller halls with pedestrian bridges and moveable partition walls
that slide beneath them; because the bridges are glazed, with fixed glass
partition walls rising above, sightlines are maintained throughout the building
at all times.In an unusual design feature that increases visitor access
and efficient space usage, the BCEC separates visitor and service entrances
vertically: an elevated, one-way road rings the facility so that visitors enter
on all sides of the building, while service access is provided by a
fifty-six-vehicle loading dock on a level beneath the concourse roadway. This
allows for the placement of meeting rooms and visitor services around the hall
on all sides.
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