Inside/Out: Copley Square

Welcome to the seventh season of "Inside/Out" -- landscape architecture site tours across our region. Prioritizing issues of climate and health, equity and resilience, each tour discusses ideas and implementation as we explore these landscapes together.

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Since 1883, Copley Square has been a vibrant gathering place framed by Boston’s most iconic architecture. To ensure its future as a cherished community hub, the City of Boston Parks & Recreation Department partnered with Sasaki to revitalize the 2.4-acre plaza.

Through an informed, community-driven process, the redesigned square offers a reinvigorated, equitable space for everyone. The update preserves mature trees, upgrades the fountain for function, sustainability, and ADA accessibility, improves walking paths, and creates a cohesive, flexible site for year-round events.

This tour will be led by

Kira Sargent, Sasaki

Zachary Christo, Sasaki

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B Chatfield, Department of Parks and Recreation, City of Boston

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Continuing Ed: This tour is being submitted for 1.0 LA CES HSW + 1.5 AIA LU HSW. Status: pending.

Scroll down to see photos of the dramatic evolution of Copley Square.

Members and non-members, coworkers + students, friends + families + kids. Tickets are FREE, tour size limited, registration appreciated. Please come dressed for the weather, prepared to walk outside.

We aim to go in most weather. We will email all ticket holders and post any changes here.

We look forward to exploring with you!

DIG DEEPER

project pages

"Building the Future of Copley Square," published June 3, 2026, by Sasaki. Including diagrams over time and details of this renovation.

Or visit the Copley Square project page at Sasaki.com.

Copley Square Park Improvements, City of Boston.

press coverage

"Copley Square's redesign has stirred controversy. But a prominent urban designer urges patience," Tiziana Dearing and Rob Lane, WBUR, May 9, 2025.

"It's easy to hate the new big open patch of concrete at Copley Square. Like it or not, there are reasons for it," Murray White, The Boston Globe, May 26, 2026. Includes an overview of the history of Copley Square Plaza.

BELOW: COPLEY SQUARE THROUGH THE YEARS

Top to bottom

1900 -- The newly created civic heart of the recently-filled Back Bay, with Trinity Cathedral at left, Boston Public Library at right, and the original Museum of Fine Arts in-between

1916 -- For its first decades, Copley Square was the triangular intersection of Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street

1950 -- Cars parked along the streets of Copley Square

1970 -- In the late 1960s, landscape architects Sasaki, Dawson & Demay designed the first iteration of Copley Square Plaza: a sunken room, anchored by a fountain. Here, as seen from the Prutential Tower.

1974 -- Pedestrians play in the Copley Square fountain. The fountain was removed during the 1980s renovation.

2026 -- Copley Square reimagined for a changing Boston.

PHOTOS

Current color photos courtesy Sasaki.

Historic photographs are from ; all without copyright restriction or approved for creative commons non-commercial use.

Organized by the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, "Inside/Out" is an ongoing series of small group, outdoor, on-site walking tours of landscape architecture throughout our region. Prioritizing issues of climate and health, equity and resilience, tour discusses ideas and implementation as we explore these landscapes together.

View a short video of Inside/Out highlights.

Is there a landscape you'd like to visit -- or one you'd like to share? Let us know!

Join us outside.