TJX Headquarters

Framingham, MA, 1989 by the Architect’s Collaborative (TAC)

In the 1950s, women’s clothing store the Bell Shops could see the writing on the wall for downtown specialty stores. Customers in the northeast were flocking to ‘mill stores’ – discount stores filling the open floors of shuttered mill buildings with wholesale clothing. Owners Stanley and Sumner Feldberg wanted to combine these expansive discount experiences with the aesthetic of the then new supermarket concept. The result was Zayre, a discount department store that quickly spread throughout the United States.

A decade before the first Zayre store would open, a young architect named John Harkness walked into the Harvard office of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. He was part of a group of recent graduates looking to start a firm built on collaboration. That firm would become the Architects Collaborative.

These two Massachusetts brands would meet in the late 1980s, both shells of their former selves. Zayre had become bloated with discount stores dragging down their midrange brands and TAC was rapidly losing money on ventures in the Middle East. In 1989, Zayre Corp sold off its other businesses and consolidated under their TJX brand. A specialized discount apparel chain created to compete with the rapidly growing Marshalls stores, TJ Maxx was outperforming most of Zayre’s other stores.

As part of this reorganization, the company chose to knock down their 1965 headquarters on the border of Framingham and Natick and hire TAC to design a brand new one next door. The two buildings rose five floors, connected by a full height glass atrium. The exterior was striped in ribbon windows and terracotta tiles. About a decade after completion, a third tower was added followed by a parking garage.

Zayre’s pivot was successful as TJ Maxx grew rapidly, eventually eclipsing Marshalls. TAC meanwhile collapsed only five years after the headquarters was complete due to outstanding debts. But the two behemoths share a similar fate in the way. Just as Massachusetts’ retail landscape is filled with Zayre’s former companies, its architecture scene is defined by the former disciples of Walter Gropius.

Sources:

Boston Society of Architects, “Chapter Letter, Volume 76, Number 11” Boston Society of Architects, December 1990.