Since it was planted in the landfill of Boston’s Back Bay district in the 1970s, I.M. Pei and Henry N. Cobb’s John Hancock Tower (1976) has been an emblem of spectacular but problematic commercial architecture. Excavation for the tower cracked the masonry of H.H. Richardson’s neighboring Trinity Church, faulty curtain walls rained glass onto surrounding streets, and the building swayed excessively.
Now, it’s a ready symbol of today’s vertiginous commercial real estate market. The building was sold in a foreclosure auction in late March to Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners for a reported $660 million. The previous owners, Broadway Partners, paid $1.3 billion in 2006.
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