Guy de Maupassant claimed that his favorite spot in Paris was the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only place in Paris from which one couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower.  I. M. Pei’s Hancock Tower in Boston from 1976 has a similar, singular presence in the city.  It’s visible from everywhere: downtown, the Fenway, the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the Commons and Copley Square.  It has no real challengers as the city’s tallest structure.  And when seen from more than a block away it feels, like the Tor, thoroughly un-building like, an apparition more than a construction.

The Tower is a fine, abstract countertpart to its more muscular neighbors, Trinity Church and the Public Library.  Its tapered footprint gives it a mysterious, mutable presence, so that it takes on different guises when seen from different places.  And its cool, bluish glass catches reflections that dissolve its figure.  It’s presence is angelic, floating protectively over everything.