Rendering:Elkus Manfredi Architects;Photo:Janet Knott/Globe Staff/File 2006

For developers seeking approval of a project, the artist’s rendering can make or break their case

The 21-story InterContinental Boston hotel won architectural awards after it opened in 2006. Its distinctive curved glass facade closely matches renderings of the development, and was intended to mimic billowing sails.

Long before a drop of concrete is poured or a single brick laid, many big construction projects come to life as a computerized rendering. They are part dream and part reality, but the very success of the project depends on how well this work of art is received.With a building boom underway, Boston is awash in renderings that developers use to influence the public, city officials, and financiers. And a bad first impression can literally send a project back to the drawing table.

“Developers come to us and say, ‘If you screw this up, we’re toast,’ ” said Carlos Cristerna, director of visualization for Neoscape, a Boston-based studio. “All of a sudden, billions of dollars are riding on whether you can do this rendering well.”

The original renderings for Steve Wynn’s gambling complex in Everett, for instance, looked so much like a run-of-the mill modern tower that Massachusetts regulators asked him to redesign it. They wanted something more imaginative, along the lines of the striking curved structure of bronzed glass used on Wynn’s Encore casino in Las Vegas. The casino mogul is redesigning the Everett complex....Continue Reading

> via The Boston Globe