The John Hancock Tower Boston is just one of the 3 buildings in the Boston City that are called the John Hancock Building. For your nice Boston MA travel guide, the three buildings were built by the company John Hancock Insurance but when you go to the streets and ask where the John Hancock Building is, they will point you to the sixty-story building on the Clarendon Street. This is the building that is known as the John Hancock Tower.
The John Hancock Tower Boston is the tallest building in the entire Boston as well as in the entire New England. It was constructed and designed by the infamous Henry Cobb I.M. Pei from the firm that was named after them and James Freed.
The tower began its construction in 1968 but it was only in 1976, 8 years after, that it finished its construction. The tower had received lots of applause in the later years because of its nice, minimalist and modern design.
It has narrow and broadsides of the building. As you look up to the tower, depending on which side you are looking from, you would see it as a tall 60-story building with a plain rectangular shape but on the other side, you’d see it having a right-angled trapezium shape that is unique and undoubtedly so modern and minimalist.
Even though the tower is said to be an achievement in its design, its beginning was not as pleasant and respected. In fact, the construction took a lot longer than was expected. Its engineering flaws were far more superior to its achievement in architecture. There were flaws and these flaws cost a lot of money.
The construction was targeted to be finished by 1971 but it only got finished 5 years later, in 1976. The budget for the said construction was only $75 million but it was rumored that the construction popped another $100 million making it $175 million in all. This was an embarrassment to the construction film and to the industry itself.
Problems abound in the construction of John Hancock Tower Boston and one of their major problems was with the blue mirror glass panes. There was an accident when its 500-lb windowpanes crashed to the sidewalk!
Another major problem was with its foundation. The foundation collapsed as it was not able to retain the mud and clay and it damaged other nearby buildings including the Trinity Church.
After all those problems that caused a lot of money and more painstaking hours of construction, we now have the John Hancock Tower Boston that is now stable and the John Hancock Insurance occupants of the buildings are quite happy even though the air conditioning expenses is a bit high.