I know what you might (or might not) be getting at: a bit of a stigma-by-association. That is, where one cannot see the genuine-gems-at-risk for all the indiscriminate--or maybe more to the point, dubiously-founded--hugging. Sort of like where you have to whack away the McMichaelish reactionaries to properly grasp the Group of Seven.
But the tripwire behind "when what's merely fashionable is confused with what's good design" is that that's the kind of cant High Modernists used to condemn *all* Art Deco. Maybe what's needed is a more open-ended and inclusive notion of "good design"--that is, embracing BCH *and* the Newton library. (Which, in a way, is truer to the once-revelatory spirit of Postmodernism--in Venturian terms, both-and, rather than either-or. Those who uphold Postmodern as a mere blunt rejection of the Modern are perverting the founding spirit.)
BTW a caveat: just because BCH is "important" doesn't mean freezing it in amber or applying Morrisian "no-scrape" absolutist principles. All it means is that matters of its existing architectural significance have to *absolutely* be taken into account rather than treated contemptuously--perhaps even treated as a creative opportunity? A subject of charettes? Like, the spirit of a lot of that misguided monkeying proposed by Sunday-painter urbanists on behalf of NPS might be not-so-misguided in a BCH context (to a point)?
Just assemble a good team, a jury of experts, including a Docomomo affiliation among them. Work in ways that might enhance yet improve (including environmentally; "greening" the building?) on what's there already, yet in accord with something like the original spirit. You may not win every Joe + Jane Public over; but at the very least, you might earn a little respect from a good whack of'em.
And it's a lot more genuinely constructive than PPS/New Urbanist/Kunstlerian absolutism. Which in the form of this sell-off solution, is akin to an urbanist Common Sense Revolution--with all the simplistic crudity that implies.
Look; sure. BCH may be "self-evidently" ugly to some, but that's like hip-hop being "self-evidently" ugly to an oldies fan. And heck, the mantra's old hat now. Modern-bashing peaked in the 80s. And whatever its pitfalls, BCH is no Pruitt-Igoe--and besides, the mantra's so old hat, it's being eaten from within. Just consider Robarts: that Big Freaking Ugly Concrete etc etc label has morphed from epithet to term of endearment. Psychogeographers, urban explorers, skateboarding ruffians and just those who've grown up and learned to live with such stuff are more sanguine about "evil" modernism than their elders. God bless these messes. Even Regent Park's demolition has been beset by a little "aw gee, maybe we shouldn't have".
And consider East Berlin. The bleak urban legacy of the Communist years, the Plattenbauten et al, have become urban cult and fetish objects par excellence--which has helped build a case *for* them.
So...why not a creative retention solution? After all, that's what a Jack Diamond team offered for 999 Queen as an alternative to demolition.
And yes, I still think things'd be different in Toronto, primarily because the political culture's different (and heck, if anyone could've figured a way to creatively exist within and make the most of a, er, stifling concrete hive like BCH, "gay councillor" Kyle Rae could've, nudgenudge winkwink sorry John Barber).
Remember: Boston's got a long history of municipal shenanigans and un-enlightenment (where'd you think Mayor Quimby got his accent?). And also remember that while BCH's gestation started in the Camelot years, it all wrapped up on President Nixon's doorstep. America had changed. And thus, it's hard to tell how much architecture like this is to blame, or some bigger long-term cultural/social pathology that in effect hollowed out what such architecture was meant to signify. Yes, definitely, if this were Toronto, or someplace in Europe, things might have been different...
