Architecture Here and There

I have used the above photograph, of the newly opened Providence Career and Technical Academy (or High School), to illustrate "deconstructivist" architecture. It is apparently the only major (or minor for all I know) example of it in the city. This shot was taken about a year ago, so I hope to get a more up to date shot before the column runs.

By the way, the new school sits near Classical High School and Central High School, which form a complex. Classical High is Brutalist and Central High is Classical. I won't tell which requires your kid to take a test to get into.

The Journal's digital photo archive had only one image of the exterior of the new school, and it appears to have been shot so as to reveal as little as possible of the absurdity of the school's architecture. An image of the school will appear at the top of my Thursday column about the feelings toward modern architecture of Nikos Salingaros.

Part of his take on modern architecture is that its staying power arises from its success as a cult. Since cults notoriously seek to flummox supposed opponents of the cultish agenda, the idea that the Journal might be part of a plot to cover up the assininity of this $90 million (yes, $90 million) investment of public funds by the city will naturally occur to the reader. I am here to deny any such plot.

Seriously, Dr. Salingaros is on the way to rouse us from our slumbers. "The modernists are coming! The modernists are coming!" He is a true hero of our error - oops, I mean era. Read more about it on Thursday.

 Tags  Career and Technical High School cult modernism Nikos Salingaros Providence RI

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