Brown's New Policy Toward Old Houses –– Architecture Critic Morgan
Will Morgan, Architecture Critic
Brown's New Policy Toward Old Houses –– Architecture Critic Morgan
Brown University's offer to sell five houses on Brook and Charlesfield Streets for $10 each may mark a welcome change in the school's attitude towards neighborhood expansion. That Brown is that is actively searching for someone to move the dwellings that stand in the way of two planned dormitories, and offering money to help the relocation is further evidence of a new chapter in town and gown relations.
Like so many institutions in the heart of older and tightly packed residential neighborhoods, expansion on the College Hill campus always comes with considerable physical and socio-political upheaval. The astoundingly beautiful and incredibly historic location is a chief reason for its appeal, yet ironically that rich tapestry makes any growth a source of conflict.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThis is hardly new. In the late 1960s, I came to Providence with a Columbia University class to meet one of the giant's of historic preservation, Antoinette Downing. Perhaps the most astonishing thing I learned from conservation's grande dame was that Brown president Barnaby Keeney served on the Providence Preservation Society's board so that he might get insider information on transient real estate and endangered properties. And while these houses are not landmark quality individually, collectively they form our appealing townscape.
As one of the drop-dead gorgeous neighborhoods anywhere, College Hill, along with Brown and RISD, was what attracted my wife and me to move to Providence's East Side over twenty years ago. Since then, we have been fascinated to watch how the college advances its mission of growth within the confines of a dense historic district.
Half a dozen Victorian dwellings were razed four summers ago, in typical university-as-slum-landlord rationale that poor maintenance rendered them beyond renovation. The Health and Wellness Dorm being built on that site is an over-scaled visual bully of unmitigated blandness. The university was willing, nevertheless, to move a few houses to make way for the performing arts center.
Architecture is above all the result of compromise, so it is unrealistic to expect an unblemished record. Given Brown's needs and its location, there are bound to be upsets, disappointments, and positive additions.
One example of an acceptable tradeoff was the destruction of five older houses along Manning and Brook Streets for the construction of the new Engineering Research Center, which is an architectural triumph. Did Brown offer to sell and move those houses?
Now Brown plans to build two new dormitories along Brook Street, in part to reduce housing pressures on the neighborhood. The university saved and incorporated an older house into its refined expansion of the Watson Center–right across the street form the two duplexes now offered for relocation. Was the architect of the new dormitories asked to fold the older houses into the fabric of the new dorms?
The Brook Street dormitories are being designed by Deborah Berke Partners in New York. Berke is dean of the architecture school at Yale and is one of the most in- demand designers around. Will this be another trendy over-the-top egotecture that will bear little relation to Brown or its environs, such as the Granoff Center for the Arts?
As the Berke office declares, "Our buildings encourage use and participation and foster a sense of belonging for the diverse communities they serve." While such boilerplate is sadly the stuff of contemporary architectural websites, Deborah Berke has done enough significant campus work to suggest that at Brown she may be able to produce an exciting complex that makes more than a nod to the College Hill townscape.
In the past I have written how Brown often hires outstanding architects but then does not quite know what to do with them. Brown's commitment to recycling the Brook and Charlesfield Street houses might just be a public relations ploy. But let us assume that this time is different, and that we are seeing a happier way to planning College Hill's future.
