Like many cities, Boston has cultivated a specific image based on its skyline; however, the Prudential and John Hancock Tower are more than a generation old, and Boston has resisted the urge to create more landmark tall buildings. Are development forces insufficient to generate the need? Does community opposition create insurmountable political risks? Or is the weight of history too heavy?

Panel: Alex Krieger FAIA, Chan Krieger NBBJ and Harvard; Tim Love AIA, Utile and Northeastern University; Kairos Shen, Boston’s chief planner; Blake Middleton FAIA, LEED AP, Handel Architects and chief designer of Millennium Place and the Filene’s site; and Elihu Rubin, visiting assistant professor of urbanism at Yale and author of Insuring the City: The Prudential Center and the Postwar Urban Landscape (Yale University Press, 2012). Rubin also will present on his book, and copies will be available for purchase.

This event is part of the Shaping the Living City lecture series. Find out more about upcoming lectures at architects.org/lectureseries.

Free and open to the public; light refreshments to follow.

Image: Courtesy of Prudential Financial