slides: Dr. Downtown’s 10 Best Modernist Buildings in Providence

Monday, March 30, 2015

David Brussat, GoLocalProv Dr. Downtown

 

View Larger +

The ten best modernist buildings in Providence is a difficult list for Dr. Downtown to compile. Still, the best of the bad in Providence are easier to find because the bad are so few. Their paucity is key to the beauty of the capital of Rhode Island. Even advocates of modern architecture cringe at the modernist buildings of Providence. Even those by famous modernists are acknowledged to be uncompelling. How sweet that they are also rare!

 

Related Slideshow: Dr. Downtown’s 10 best modernist buildings in Providence

See Dr. Downtown's 10 best modernist buildings in Providence. 

View Larger +
Prev Next

10. The List Art Center

1971. Philip Johnson. There is a sort of faux nobility to this Brutalist Brown University building, whose pilotis (modernist jargon for columns) soar, if it is possible for concrete to soar, up three stories to uphold a thrusting fourth story that forms a sort of entablature (classical jargon for that which columns hold up) for this building, whose saw-blade rooftop literally scrapes the sky on the horizon of College Hill.

 

courtesy of midcenturymundane.wordpress.com

View Larger +
Prev Next

9. The Doorley Building

1966. Fenton Keyes & Assocs. The Doorley ties with the Heritage Building, both examples of Brutalism in brick. The Doorley was among the several buildings abandoned by Blue Cross/Blue Shield when it moved to its new headquarters in Capital Center, setting off a musical chairs of occupancy that was completed by the relocation of the Providence Department of Planning & Development into this building across Empire from its former offices in the old Harris Fur Building. In short, there is not much to say about this building.

 

courtesy of gcpd.org:

View Larger +
Prev Next

8. The Heritage Building

1967. Fenton Keyes & Assocs. Of this building tied with the Doorley the same might be said. But Dr. Downtown will try. The two buildings were designed by the same firm. The doctor deduced this years before his research confirmed it yesterday - not from their brick but from their fenestration, whose lips and brow in the case of the Heritage and lips only in the case of the Doorley are formed of stepped brick. Both buildings’ windows are deeply set, giving them a feeling of solidity above and beyond their sheer brickness.

courtesy of loop net.com:

View Larger +
Prev Next

7. The Packet Building

1970. The doctor has a soft spot for this ugly building that was probably used as a contextual excuse 15 years later for its neighbor, Old Stone Square (below). The Packet’s fairly standard International Style features Corbusier-esque “grille climatique” on its front facade, repeated in attenuated form as balcony struts on its rear facade. The packet ship overlooking the Providence River adds piquancy to this sad building.

 courtesy of midcenturymundane.com

View Larger +
Prev Next

6. Old Stone Square

1985. Edward Larrabee Barnes. Dr. Downtown suspects that this building was designed to punish local preservationists who fought a quasi-Georgian postmodernist earlier version that blocked views of South Main Street from downtown. Notwithstanding the Packet “precedent,” it is ridiculously noncontextual, but its cubic form with cubes cut out of its top and bottom quadrants fulfills modernist aesthetic aspirations better than most modernist buildings. The conventional reaction to Old Stone Square is that it should be somewhere else.

courtesy of commons.wikimedia.com

View Larger +
Prev Next

5. Beneficent House

1969. Paul Rudolph. Another Brutalist building in Providence. Beneficent Congregational Church developed the building as affordable housing, a purpose it continues to serve. The negative impact of its very muted allure is diminished by the large stand of trees that hides it from the view along Empire. Rudolph’s work is targeted for demolition around the country, but not here in Providence.

courtesy of apartments.com:

View Larger +
Prev Next

4. Textron Building

 1972. Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. This building, designed by the architects of the Empire State Building, rises from the plaza where Weybosset and Westminster meet at the eastern end of a bow whose western end was demolished. That is now the site now of Beneficent House. The tower’s windows, inset behind a concrete grille, give the building a sense of strength foreign to most modernism. Witness the Hospital Trust Tower across the plaza. It is sided with travertine but its windows are set flush to its facades, giving it the look of plastic.

courtesy of shutterstock.com

View Larger +
Prev Next

3. The Fleet Center

1985. Helmut, Obata & Kassebaum (HOK). Designed by a firm better known for designing sports stadiums, the Fleet Center (not to be confused with the sports arena in Boston) features a stepped crown often cited as evidence of its postmodernist style. Its inset windows on two sides are also postmodern compared with the glass curtain wall of its other two sides. Yet its postmodernism is overridden by its modernism. Still, modernism looks best from a distance. Jumbled together with the Textron, the Hospital Trust Tower and the Industrial Trust (“Superman”) Building, the Fleet Center contributes to Providence’s imposing skyline.

courtesy of wikipedia.com

View Larger +
Prev Next

2. Center for Computing

1961. Philip Johnson. This low building is probably the best modernist building by a star architect in Providence. Regarding the design, Johnson wrote: “By use of the red granite chips, I thought to harmonize the Laboratory with the 19th century which surrounds it.” Johnson failed to achieve his harmonic intention, but the result is still a far gentler building than most modernist architecture in Providence, or elsewhere. But please, can’t they get the facilities guys to paint those front door frames?

courtesy of midcenturymundane.com:

View Larger +
Prev Next

1. Nulman Lewis Center

2009. Ann Beha Architects. This building has been called a little jewel box. The doctor hesitates to go that far. It fits very poorly with the elegant traditional facades that flank it on Meeting Street, proving yet again that a size that fits is not the same as a building that fits. However, diminutive size is here sufficient to secure the Lewis Center its No. 1 ranking atop Dr. Downtown’s list of Providence’s best modernist buildings. It is the smallest. Therefore, it is the best. Were it even smaller it would be better still.

courtesy of archdaily.com:

 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook