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Christina Lanzl Receives Recognition of Service Award from Boston Society of Architects/AIA

1/31/2020

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Christina Lanzl received a Recognition of Service award from the Boston Society of Architects/AIA for "work, time, creativity and knowledge as Committee Chair for the Placemaking Network", which she initiated as a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and exchange in 2007. The explicit vision of the Placemaking Network is to “investigate ways to enrich the public realm through dialogue among urban planning, landscape design, architecture, and public art/design professionals” as well as engaged citizens.

The initial
Boston Society of Architects newsletter announcement started with the premise: “The topics of placemaking and quality of life have entered architecture and planning conversations as they have entered creative arts conversations.” Rather than simply functioning as a standing committee, the Placemaking Network had a mission to build a network of like-minded people who would introduce placemaking principles to their work and communities. By now, the network has grown to include engaged citizens and professionals of many backgrounds and disciplines.

Since the beginning, concepts and case studies have been shared at monthly seminars where invited speakers present topics that are then discussed in a moderated roundtable format. The foundation of our work is that placemaking offers interdisciplinary dialogue on a successful public realm that engages communities and enriches lives. Initially, the spark of successful public places that are actively used or programmed by communities was ignited by proactive urbanists, whose publications honed in on the placemaking tenets. 

After ten years of experience and conversations, the Placemaking Manifesto took form. Christina Lanzl invited co-chair Robert Tullis and architectural historian Anne-Catrin Schultz to co-write a one-page policy that lists the core placemaking principles in six points. Using the equation symbol to summarize each value the document reads like a poem. Our draft was reviewed and confirmed by our network’s interdisciplinary ad hoc working group. Succinctly, we concluded that placemaking is about sense of place. Everybody––people of all backgrounds, ages and abilities––can participate in creating successful public places. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, healthy communities and thriving neighborhoods. We see our built environment as a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to space, design leadership that leverages it, and activity programming that capitalizes on it. Over the years, my ongoing work in the field of public art and with the Placemaking Network has been a cross-fertilizer on how to best mark place, history and time through integrative, community-based public art and culture that furthers identity, local storytelling as well as learning.

This story includes an excerpt from the essay "Toward a New Paradigm: Public Art and Placemaking in the 21st Century" by Christina Lanzl, published in Extraordinary Partnerships: How the Arts and Humanities are Transforming Society, edited by Christine Henseler (Lever Press, 2020).
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Boston Harbor Heroes Award for South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition

4/4/2018

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Save the Harbor / Save the Bay bestowed its annual Boston Harbor Heroes awards at a gala evening held in the grand ballroom of the Seaport Hotel on March 29, 2018. Among others, the South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition was honored for its "vision, tenacity and commitment to connecting Boston's neighborhoods to Boston Harbor and each other." Under the leadership of coalition founder, Michael Tyrrell, the team of David Giangrande, Christina Lanzl, Ann McQueen, Tom Parks, the late Bill Pressley and his wife Marion, Candelaria Silva and Bob Wells envisioned the South Bay Harbor Trail (SBHT) ​as part of a larger trail network that connects the Southwest Corridor Park from Jamaica Plain to the Boston Harborwalk downtown and in South Boston. Buoys salvaged and reconditioned by the US Coast Guard serve as markers and a playful reminder of Boston's rich maritime history. Main goal is to reconnect communities divided by major traffic arteries via an easily accessible, multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path. The first of a series of SBHT Buoys was dedicated along the Harborwalk in Fort Point Channel in November 2008. Funding for public art planning along the trail was provided by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund of the City of Boston. Other funders include the ISTEA program, MassDOT, the New England Foundation for the Arts as well as private donors. Overall construction of the SBHT is underway as of spring 2018.

About the South Bay Harbor Trail
The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition, in partnership with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay, municipal and state agencies, partnered to plan and build the 3.5 mile-long, multi-use South Bay Harbor Trail which, when completed, will connect Roxbury, the South End, Chinatown, Fort Point Channel and South Boston to each other and to Boston Harbor.

The South Bay Harbor Trail is one of the most important and exciting initiatives in the city connecting our inland neighborhoods to Boston Harbor. The Trail will link people to the recreational resources of a revitalized Boston Harbor and to the economic opportunities of a prospering waterfront. Residents from Boston’s diverse neighborhoods will have the opportunity to share in a cultural exchange.
 
The South Bay Harbor Trail will provide an important link in the larger transportation network by connecting with existing streets and trails such as the Southwest Corridor and Melnea Cass Boulevard. It will also serve as a critical link in a citywide greenway, connecting trails from Fenway, the Southwest Corridor, Charles River Park, Broadway Bridge, Fort Point Channel and the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
 
The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition includes community groups, environmental organizations, the City of Boston, property owners, developers, and residents. It is governed by a steering committee which is comprised of coalition members representing every neighborhood through which the Trail will pass. The Coalition receives organizational, fundraising, and technical assistance from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. 
 
The Coalition worked together with Pressley Associates, a Cambridge-based landscape architecture firm, and Design Consultants Inc., a Somerville-based engineering firm, to develop the engineering and design master plans that will link various completed segments of the trail into a contiguous, single trail system/experience.

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Common Boston Call for Volunteers

4/27/2017

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Common Boston is accepting volunteers through May 15, 2017.

The Urban Culture Institute is Community Partner and proud co-sponsor of Common Boston, the annual architecture and design festival of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA, a program of the BSA Foundation. Common Boston will provide free, open access to buildings throughout Boston's diverse neighborhoods during the weekend of June 3 and 4. By doing so, the public will be inspired to discover why design matters, and learn the stories of Greater Boston's many dynamic communities. Since 2006, Common Boston has hosted over 250+ events for thousands of attendees in 35 greater Boston neighborhoods. 
​
Please help make Common Boston possible, and volunteer your time during the festival weekend! Meet interesting people,
​go behind the scenes of some of the city’s greatest places, and become more involved in your community.
The 2017 Common Boston Festival includes over 50 sites.


Among the 2017 site partners are Arnold Arboretum | Ayer Mansion | BNN Charles J. Beard ll Media Center | Bolling Building | Boston Architectural College | Boston Harbor Distillery | Boston Nature and Wildlife Center | Boston Public Market | BPL: Central Library in Copley Square | BPL: East Boston | BPL: Honan Allston | BPL: Hyde Park | BPL: Jamaica Plain | BPL: Mattapan Branch | Cambridge City Hall | Carpenter Center for Visual Arts | Church of the Covenant | Community Boat Building | The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art | Cooper Frost Austin House | DHS: Capt. Lemuel Clap House | DHS: James Blake House | DHS: William Clapp House | District Hall | Eliot Burying Ground | Eliot School of Fine Arts | Emerald Necklace Conservancy | Ether Dome and the Bulfinch Building | Eustis Street Firehouse | Fenway Victory Gardens | First Baptist Church of Boston | First Church of Roxbury Meetinghouse | Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site | Grain Wood Shop | Hibernian Hall |  Kendall Square Roof Garden | L Street Power Station | Loring-Greenough House | Lunder Arts Center, Lesley University | Metropolitan Waterworks Museum | MIT List Art Center | The Museum of African American History | Northeastern University’s Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex | Old North Church | Otis House, Historic New England | Shrine of Our Lady of Good Voyage | Paul S. Russell, MD Russell Museum of Medical History & Innovation | Saint Peter's Episcopal Church | South Street Farm (Groundwork Somerville) | Vilna Shul, Boston's Center for Jewish Culture | Trinity Church | Union Press | YMCA of Greater Boston | Y2Y | ZUMIX
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Fort Point and Seaport Forum

9/22/2015

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Fort Point and Seaport Neighborhood Forum on the Arts, Culture and Planning at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

The neighborhood forum of Boston’s historic Fort Point and the Seaport District at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) on October 22, 2015 focussed on the arts, culture and planning. The event was organized by Mayor Walsh’s administration in partnership with the Fort Point Arts Community, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Urban Culture Institute.

The Fort Point and Seaport Forum brought together leaders, residents, artists and professionals from Fort Point and the Seaport as well as from other Boston communities for an informal conversation on neighborhood life and planning initiatives of the City of Boston.

ICA Executive Director Jill Medvedow welcomed the speakers and attendees, followed by a brief overview of ICA history and programs. This important cultural institution with a 80-year history moved to the waterfront in 2006. Contemporary art in all media—visual arts, performance, film, video, and literature—and educational programs foster an appreciation for contemporary art.

Jen Mecca, Chair of the Board of Directors introduced the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC). Founded in 1980, FPAC has developed three artist live/work buildings at 249 A Street and at 300 Summer Street as well as the Midway Studios on Channel Center Street. FPAC hosted the 36th Annual Open Studios in October, complemented by two other open studio weekends every year in the spring and during the holiday season. FPAC also operates the FPAC Gallery, the Made in Fort Point artist store, and offers numerous other programs.

Christina Lanzl, co-founder of the Urban Culture Institute, gave an overview of her 20-year history in Fort Point and highlighted current projects in partnership with the City of
Boston, the MBTA and FPAC. She then introduced the speakers and facilitated the question-and-answer session following the presentations.
​

City of Boston presenters were Julie Burros, Chief of Arts and Culture, John Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of Imagine Boston 2030, and Rich McGuinness, Deputy Director of Waterfront Planning. The speakers introduced their plans and vision for Fort Point and the Seaport, followed by a discussion with attendees. The goal of the forum was to engage a group of
diverse community members for a joint conversation and to
further communications within the area and with the City administration. It also provided an opportunity for residents of both historic Fort Point and the emerging Seaport to meet each other.

Richard McGuinness shared his current work on the downtown waterfront and his insights on the series of planning projects he completed for the Boston Redevelopment Authority in Fort Point and the Seaport from 2000 to 2015. He concluded his remarks with lessons learned and inspirations drawn from a recently completed research trip to Seattle. 

Julie Burros gave an update on the ongoing Boston Creates city-wide cultural plan, which is expected to build a shared vision for arts and culture for the first time in the city's history. Of note are her plans to update the BRA's Artist Certification program and to increase the number of artist housing units. To bolster the capacity of the office of Arts and Culture, a new planner has been added to the team in October 2015.

​
John Fitzgerald, the Deputy Director of Imagine Boston 2030, introduced the recently launched municipal urban design plan. The City's last master plan was completed 50 years ago. A robust community participation process is part of this initiative, similar to the cultural plan process.

Many thanks to the hosts and presenters, as well as Kelly Gifford and Kate Shamon of the ICA and Urban Culture Institute Fellows, Thu Ngan Han and Hilary Buskirk of Stantec.
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