Ten O'Clock News

[Reporter] Seen from the right angle, Boston already looks unusual, but you haven't seen anything yet. Imagine a Prudential Tower that looked like this. Or a wall built all around the whole harbor to protect us in case the glaciers melt. And what about a botanical garden in Allston or an art museum inside South Boston's dry dock? These are all Visions of Boston, winners in a national design contest to rethink our city. [Steven Cecil] And the idea was really to ask designers across the country for their ideas about what Boston could be like 10, 20, 50, 100 years in the future. [Reporter] Steven Cecil chaired the Boston Society of Architects committee that organized the contest. More than 200 entries poured in, and the result is an exhibit called Boston Vision. [Cecil] We've tried to phrase this in a way that people can really understand and have a wider discussion about what future directions are reasonable or even imaginable. [Reporter] Imagination is the key word here. Architectural imagination, freed from the limits of zoning requirements and height restrictions that an architect

deals with daily. Who says you have to tear down old smokestacks? Why not redesign them, reuse them, and call them folk stacks? Housing can come in many forms. [Cecil] We had really wanted people to look at a serious way at serious issues facing the city, but we were also open to fanciful ideas to illustrate what could happen. [Reporter] So why not pave a 26 mile marathon route around the harbor or sail a ferry down the Charles or do what the Boston Architectural Firm of Communitas suggests? [Cecil] And they had a great sort of crazy idea of moving the airport outside of downtown. This is in 100 years, and a whole new area of the city has been created. I take it as, in a sense, a serious piece, but in a sense, it's really fun. And again a way of broadening our ideas about the way we think about the region. [Reporter] That's what this contest was all about. Opening our minds, taking off our blinders and nudging us away from the norm.

If it sounds radical, remember: 20 years ago, who would have thought Boston would look like this? For the 10 O'Clock News, I'm Hope Kelly.