Architecture Here and There

William Morgan gave a rousing lecture at the annual meeting of the Providence Preservation Society last Thursday. Morgan had slides (or whatever they're called these days), but he omitted some very relevant material. He was witty and erudite, but - surprise, surprise! - refrained from twitting the organization for its continuing refusal to engage in the real work of preservation.

But Morgan (full disclosure: he's a friend of mine) did twit PPS's host, the Beneficent Congregational Church, known as "Round Top," in downtown, for its elaborate chancel, paid for in the 1920s by the Rockefellers.

If the more ornate chancel installed in 1923 is somehow inauthentic, or, as Morgan suggested, rips the church away from its New England roots, then what are we to make of James Bucklin's changes in 1836, which transformed an 1809 Adamesque church with a dome and a slender portico to a Greco-Egyptian church with a massive Doric portico and a dome with an ornate lantern on top - taken from the fourth century B.C. Choragic Monument to Lysicrates, in Athens. Is that inauthentic? What about the congregation's demolishing a steepled meeting house to build a domed edifice in 1809? How far back must we go before we reach the authentic? Or is all change inherently inauthentic?

Hmm.

And what about the glass-box shoved into the crook of Round Top in 2004, pictured above? I refrain in my upcoming column from twitting the church for that abomination, an elevator shaft, or PPS for applauding it - the photo is from its roundup of preservation "winners" that year. But you can read my complaint right here. By the way, in the background of the top picture is Paul Rudolph's Beneficent House, built in 1969.

Well, more such ramblings are coming up on Thursday, with the promise of yet more the following week.

 Tags  Beneficent Congregational Church Providence Preservation Society Providence RI William Morgan

Comments

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity are not allowed. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Lewis Dana said:

I'll refrain from quibbling on matters of modren vs.antique buildings... and agree that it was a rousing speech.

But here's a big vote of appreciation to the folks at Benificent for opening the door to the engineering marvel they've preserved for 200 years: the dome. Climbing up the narrow,twisting stairway into the dome was a treat. There's not a piece of steel visible up there, just a tangle of rough hewn lumber running in all sorts of directions like pick-up sticks. How they've managed to keep that up is a tribute to the ship's carpenter or early engineer who designed the thing.

Link | January 26, 2010 11:22 PM
Report Abuse

---

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.