HERE.

Of course they do not work for the T. But the T thought of it first. So there.

I was over in the Charles/MGH station area yesterday evening (on my bike, of course). The station there is coming along.

It’s definitely a change from the old wooden box style station that used to be there. I like the lines of the new station but it’s so not Boston, and so, so not Beacon Hill. But I like it, from the outside, at least, for the gentle curve of the high glass wall that finesses that unconventional intersection there.

Boston’s urban structures, outside of the tight little knot of Beacon Hill and the short-lived linearity of residential Back Bay, are all at odds with each other. This was caused by and has led to some striking architectural failures. Just take a stroll through the financial district. Boston’s been the butt of a running gag among architects for decades. There are cheap gimmicks galore. Nothing to give a sense of unity except that embarrassing desperation for distinction among the New York wannabes in the crowd. If Menino gets his tower, it will merely serve as a new icon of Boston’s inferiority complex.

But–and I admit this grudgingly–there are random places on the ground where the skyline is unexpectedly, pleasingly dynamic—I realized this when looking over some pictures a friend visiting from Italy had taken from various, random spots in the city—just whenever the mood struck him, he’d point and click. In the future I’ll post my own “found vistas” along with my picks for architectural flops, along with those rare successes in the Boston skyline, and I certainly invite yours as well.

For now, I’d nominate as damagingly inconsequential a structure I had business in last night in the Charles/MGH area: the Tip O’Neill Federal Building.

This is classic office park architecture. The selling point here was obviously the dramatic angle of the pie wedge. The architect’s inspiration seems to have been a stingy slice of tiramisu.

From one angle, in photographs if not in reality, the building looks, erm, distinctive. That’s about all you can say about it. But you get no sense of this when you’re actually there, on the street.

And just a note about the bike rack outside the main entrance. It’s impressive they have one (if only one). I’m not going to complain: it’s a very long one. But they have placed it under the only trees on the street, where about ten million cranky birds nest, and it is absolutely caked in bird shit. It’s become a sort of living sculpture. When I came out after my meeting, I had to tunnel through about two feet of fresh poop to find my bike.

Still the Tip O’Neill does not qualify as a complete abomination. Next door is the appalling monolith of the Banknorth Garden, whose “decorated” facade, if you can call it that, does not face Causeway Street, but looks out over 93. And I can say unequivocally that the exterior of this box is an utter abomination.