In carrying the glass-and-steel tradition to this extreme Cobb actually parodies a skyscraper. Everyone at "Back Bay Boston: The City as A Work of Art" giggled when they came to the three-dimensional model of the tower and surrounding area. The Hancock Tower is funny because it's so totally out of scale with its surroundings. It will rise right behind H.H. Richardson's Trinity Church, south of Copley Square. And in the model it actually makes that forceful building with its space-carving Romanesque forms look squat and toad-like.

I GUESS YOU can't expect corporations and real estate developers to spend money for aesthetics. But you can force them to. The developers stepped all over the City of Boston when these monstrosities were approved. Both towers were in violation of existing zoning laws. The sites are so desirable that allowing certain violations should have garnered the city considerable leverage for getting better buildings.

New construction is, of course, good for a city's economy-it brings tax money. lunchtime shoppers and employees who will want to live in the inner city. But it should be possible to get all that and good urban design too. For example, the Prudential Center didn't have to cloister itself on its side of Boylston Street. Set far back from the sidewalk, it destroys the street front which is crucial to Back Bay. The escalators which presumably lead into it are no substitute for store fronts and other visual and physical openings. Also, the whole development is on such a huge scale, with those long blocks of straight concrete that it really has nothing to do with Back Bay or Boston.

And the Hancock building will be more of the same. It could at least visually acknowledge a street level, and make some concession to the scale of Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library. Instead of being so glaringly glass and steel it might honor the warmly colored texture of Back Bay. Finally, there's no reason for it to be a 60-story monolith-land isn't all that scarce in Boston. Of course, excessive height and strikingly in human scale are an asset to a commercial building. They assert that it is the most important, the biggest and the best, even while it draws bigger traffic jams.

The problem of building well, to make the city a work of art, involves more than just putting up prettier buildings. New construction along Boylston Street could amount to a glass and steel barricade, while there is a strong need to tie the South End closer to the Back Bay. And besides looking strange and introducing congestion, surrounding Back Bay with high rise buildings or putting a high spine through Boston could even redirect winds and change temperatures in the area. It all seems worth concern, because the city is, after all, the most public and accessible art form.