Architecture
Designed by the Chicago-based firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and developed by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, 60 State Street is clad in pink granite to blend with the red brick of Faneuil Hall, City Hall Plaza and other neighboring buildings and spaces. The granite-clad triangular pillars alternate with vertical banks of rectangular floor-to-ceiling windows in a pattern similar to that of Eero Saarinen's black granite-faced CBS Building, a.k.a. "Black Rock," in New York City.
Also like Black Rock, 60 State Street is surrounded by a pedestrian plaza. Only this time the plaza is raised rather than sunken and is accessible at street level from State Street and by two flights of stairs from Faneuil Hall Marketplace.
Unlike Black Rock's rectangular solid composition, 60 State Street was given eleven sides and a two-part scheme so that it has the appearance of side-by-side octagonal tubes from a distance. The chamfered corner pillars are similarly octagonal. This theme recalls Boston's historic architectural vernacular of chamfered bay windows on Beacon Hill and in the Back Bay.
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