Tag Archives: Brown University

Rubik’s Cube of life sciences

Brown has released the design of its umpteenth medical research center in Providence’s Jewelry District. It looks just like every other building of its sort, a bland, inoffensive glass and steel nonentity designed by TenBerke, with interiors by Ballinger, encumbered … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Attack on Wickenden St.

Thayer Street lost its character over the past two or three decades, as Providence and Brown shrugged their shoulders when “the Main Street of Brown University” saw its carriage trade and mom & pop shops ousted in favor of a … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Good news for Labor Day

Bernheimer Architecture, a small design firm of 22 employees headquartered in New York City, has become the first in the industry to form a union. An article by New York Times correspondent Noam Scheiber reports that the employees’ campaign to … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ugliness at Brown explained

Brown University’s new performing arts center, in the form of a stunted square pillar with flutes squatting atop a rectangular glass lobby, is almost ready for its dedication. It will be called the Lindemann Performing Arts Center, named for a … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Two rotten eggs and a peach

The I-195 District Redevelopment Commission, at its Sept. 20 meeting, looked at three proposals for mixed-use apartment complexes on former highway land east of the Providence River. One proposal exceeds the other two in appearance. That should be the primary … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

What would St. Florian do?

Last Thursday, Friedrich St. Florian, the Providence architect, appeared before a subcommittee of the Historic District Commission on the matter of 59 Williams St., just off Benefit Street in the city’s College Hill Historic District. Its members had visited the … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Another travesty at Brown?

Brown sent a gang of its minions to present its latest proposed abomination to the Fox Point Neighborhood Association last night. The two huge rectangular boxes with skewed roofs on either side of poor Brook Street (disembowled recently by the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Monster U.’s oddball campus

Imprisoned in our own home, we decided (that is, Billy, 11, decided, with Mom’s backing) that we’d watch Monster University, a 2013 Disney animated prequel to 2001’s Monster Inc. by Pixar. Monster U. features six cute young frat monsters led … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Humor, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

At Brown, here we go again

Brown University is at it again. It plans to tear down old structures in order to build new ones. GoLocalProv.com’s story, “Brown Proposing to Build 375-Bed Residential Hall – Multiple Structures to be Demolished,” mentions four demolitions and reveals that … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , | 20 Comments

A view of Providence in 1808

The Rhode Island Historical Society yesterday displayed its amazing 1809 drop curtain, owned by the society since 1833 and depicting the town as it appeared in 1808, twenty years before the Providence Arcade was built in 1828. It is thought … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture History, Providence | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments