Architecture Here and There

Illustrations: Above: World's Columbian Exposition, 1893, in Chicago; Butler Exchange at Exchange Place, in Providence, circa 1900; bottom, WaterFire at Waterplace, in Capital Center, Providence, circa 2000, photo by Richard Benjamin.

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A symposium (details here) this Friday and Saturday sponsored by the Providence Preservation Society in association with the Providence Athenaeum and the Rhode Island School of Design will discuss the role of Providence in the City Beautiful movement, and vice versa. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a flowering of classical architecture in the building of America's civic squares, monuments and buildings. Part of the impetus for this movement arose from the beauty of Providence, built upon the profits of its industrial, commercial and shipping economy, which at the time was one of the most powerful in America. Rhode Island had the nation's highest per-capita income.

How times have changed! And how the subsequent movement of modern architecture has changed the face of our city - and worse, that of America! Fortunately, Providence has escaped with relatively little damage from modernism, and most of its Gilded Age civic monuments survive. The Downtown Providence 1970 Plan, released in 1960, sought to tear down much of that, but the city and state were too poor to pay for urban removal - and so Providence remains beautiful, far more so than comparable and even larger cities in America.

Perhaps this symposium will support the concept of improving the beauty of cities by supporting the construction of new classical and traditional buildings, permitting the evolution of architecture - cut off by half a century of modernism - to begin again.

Don't hold your breath, though. If past behavior is prologue, PPS and RISD, at least, will be working to quash any such revival, whatever may emerge from the symposium. And yet, may its behavior be subject to modification in this era of hope and change - which I would add seemed to emerge at Waterplace Park, designed in a classical style by Bill Warner, for a brief and shiny moment: All of the buildings in the picture below, including Providence Place mall, designed by Friedrich St. Florian, were erected between 1993 and 2000. Since then, the modernists have recaptured the momentum in Providence, and four ugly buildings have arisen, abolishing this scene photographed by Richard Benjamin. (No, it is not a painting.)

 Tags  City Beautiful Providence Preservation Society Providence RI Richard Benjamin World's Columbian

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