Client

Overview

The Brookline Avenue building dramatically enhances the Fenway neighborhood as a burgeoning center of life science, providing flexible office/lab space for Boston’s growing high-tech, medical, and academic industries. To accommodate the ever-changing needs of the fast-paced life science market, the new 14-story, 529,000-sf building offers programmatically flexible space, with 37,000-sf floor plates with a high percentage of column-free bays for maximum efficiency. Incorporating expansive daylighting throughout, the building features multiple tenant amenity spaces, including an indoor/outdoor roof lounge, where occupants can recharge in the fresh air and connect with other researchers.

The building’s two-story lobby houses the indoor/outdoor mural carved into the exterior and lobby wall. The centerpiece of the building, the mural, speaks to the science taking place inside. Commissioned by Elkus Manfredi Architects and art consultant Emily Santangelo, it memorializes breakthroughs in research and medical practice led by three pioneer women from the Boston area: Rosalind Franklin for her crucial contribution to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA; Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first African American nurse; and Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross.

Goals

Elkus Manfredi Architects and art consultant Emily Santangelo commissioned innovative Portuguese visual artist Alexandre Farto, aka VHILS, to create a mural for the exterior and interior lobby wall of Brookline Avenue. The artist conducted research over several years for the project, including numerous visits to the Fenway, before ultimately composing his powerful mural. Incorporating the story of science that will unfold within the building, VHILS memorialized inspirational local women in the sciences – heroes both in research and in practice, stitching them into imagery of the Fenway neighborhood.

Affectionately known as the "Mount Rushmore of Women," the mural appears on the front exterior face of the building and continues into the interior lobby. Outside, VHILS placed the portrait of Rosalind Franklin in homage to her crucial contribution to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. As the mural moves into the interior, two renowned figures are memorialized: Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first African American nurse, and Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, both of whom were born in the Boston area. Around their portraits, historical components of the Fenway neighborhood are depicted.