Setting Greenway's tone

Rose Kennedy Greenway planners are launching an architectural competition for the first building expected to be completed along the new, post-Big Dig park system, and city officials hope it will signal the emergence of a "New Boston."

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While the guidelines are vague, the goal is for a modern, high-concept structure devoid of red brick. The 2,400-square-foot building, about the size of a modest suburban house, will be a visitor's center to promote the use of the 34 Boston Harbor islands.

Called the Harbor Park Pavilion on the Greenway, it will set the tone for even more ambitious buildings destined to dot the Greenway, the newly emerging green space above Boston's Big Dig highway tunnels.

"The building should be of the 21st century," said Robert Kroin, chief architect at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city's development arm.

The city and a Design Advisory Committee overseeing creation of the new downtown park system are pushing cutting-edge design philosophies such as transparent exteriors, multiple entrances, and the use of shiny, modern materials.

Greenway planners hope the harbor pavilion and some already in-the-works cultural institutions that will populate the Greenway, including the New Center for Arts and Culture, and the Boston Museum Project, will help bring continuity and attention to an elongated park system a decade and a half in the making.

"Wouldn't it be great if they shared common design elements, rather than being fragmented," Kroin said at a recent meeting of the Mayor's Central Artery Completion Task Force, a citizens' group that has overseen Greenway design. "It is so crucially located it has the opportunity to both observe and advance important views of the city."

The building will be in the heart of Boston's downtown tourism landscape, the corner of State Street and Atlantic Avenue, near the New England Aquarium. The budget is $4 million, a lot for something that size even though it includes the interior and contents.

"This is a great opportunity for young architects in the Boston area to show what they can do," said Gary Hack, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, and chairman of the Design Advisory Committee, which came up with the idea of a competition for the pavilion's design.

In fact, the competition will be open to anyone, though judges will be on the lookout for an architect familiar with New England. Calls for ideas will go out in January, and the winner is expected to be chosen in the spring.

The selected architect will then meet with the National Park Service and its partner, the Island Alliance, a nonprofit group that promotes the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, to complete design of the pavilion in 2005. It could be open by late 2006.

Among the eye-popping examples cited by the city as the kind of design it is seeking were: Toyo Ito's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Kensington Gardens, London, a white folded metal panel origami; Eric Owen Moss's The Umbrella in Culver City, Calif., a tangle of curved and angled metal screens and struts; and Richard Meier's Neugebauer House in Naples, Fla., with a Nike logo-shaped roof.

Sarah Peskin, director of special planning projects for the Northeast region of the park service, who is now raising the money to build and furnish the pavilion, said it is intended to be made of high-quality materials and feature the latest in computerized, interactive technology to help visitors to Boston and residents negotiate their way among the Boston Harbor attractions.

The design guidelines, though not explicit, suggest that glass and transparency are preferred -- except in the restroom area, a requirement of the pavilion.

The guidelines are similar to those set up for a cultural institution on a block adjacent to International Place, which spurred intense competition between the New Center for Arts and Culture and the Boston Museum Project.

Both projects' sponsors hired internationally renowned architects, known for their modern or futuristic visions. But the work of the two architects, Moshe Safdie of Somerville, who drew the museum project, and Daniel Liebeskind of New York, who created the arts and culture facility, has been extremely well received.

The museum is half above and half below a plane of lawn and plantings -- all under a vessel-like structure housing theaters and exhibits. The transparent design will enable pedestrians to feel like they are in a gallery as they pass by on the outside.

The arts and culture center also is designed with unusual angles, irregular shapes, and extensive use of glass. The center won the contest to build on the Greenway near International Place, but the museum project may find a home several blocks to the north.

The Boston Society of Architects will advise the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and National Park Service on the competition for the pavilion. The turnpike, as the manager of the Big Dig, is responsible for the creation of what goes above the tunnels.

A panel of seven judges includes representatives of the Boston Society of Architects, the Design Advisory Committee, the turnpike, the BRA, Wharf District design firm EDAW, the Island Alliance, and the National Park Service.

The pavilion will supplement two other park service information locations in Boston. It will incorporate a cafe and informational exhibits, and it is one of three or four smaller, kiosk-style structures planned among the parks.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.