One picture would have been worth more than these thousand words.
From
http://www.aiany.org/eOCULUS/2004/11.02.04.html
Last Saturday, Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and United States District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock joined Henry N. Cobb, FAIA, Bill Lacy, and Robert Campbell, FAIA, at the Center for Architecture to discuss the design and significance of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners' John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse and Harborpark in Boston. Harry Cobb spoke of the sequence of movement through the structure, and its interaction with the park and waterfront, criticizing the current model-based "Civic Spirit" exhibition in the Center for Architecture as being too concerned with buildings as objects. Justice Breyer talked as well of the importance of the court's civic function and siting – the Justices were most interested in a challenging site as well as serving as a catalyst for Boston redevelopment allowing truly public access to the South Boston waterfront.
Breyer said, "Above all is the public square – that works if there are people, it fails if there aren't." Judge Woodlock noted that "Architecture at its very best is a combination of memory and invention, speaking of the past and talking to the future, and doing the very best it can in the present." Woodlock stated that the public realm is now looked upon as "casual recreation and concerted consumption – Faneuil Hall," adding, "What it is that makes a city is confrontations that are unexpected, concentrated in a very small area." With expected panelist Ellsworth Kelly indisposed, Cobb said that his building "would be incomplete without Kelly's art" and that "we need to avoid statements in architecture as in art, and maybe in law as well, that may seem to be too definitive and too complete – the art and the architecture should need each other." The final words were from Justice Breyer: "What you have seen here show the changes that have taken place over a long period of time by people both inside and outside." In particular, the role of Ed Feiner, FAIA, and Marilyn Farley in creating GSA's Design Excellence program was specifically appreciated by the panelists who also noted that the Moakley Courthouse preceded and helped foster the creation of the program.