The mush slated for Parcel 5 – David Brussat

by David Brussat, Architecture Here and There, contributing writer

Parcel 5 Designs (195 Commission)

The Route 195 District Development Commission has just released a set of nine proposals submitted at its request for Parcel 5, the largest remaining unbuilt, unsold or not yet “under agreement” bit of I-195 land east of the Providence River, created more than a decade ago by the relocation half a mile south of Route 195. The proposals are all bad. My friendly rival Will Morgan has critiqued them for the website GoLocalProv.

Will and I are in agreement on most development proposals for new buildings in old neighborhoods in Providence. They, too, are mostly bad and Will agrees, thinking as I do that developers should do a better job fitting such buildings into the local character.

But on new development generally, we are diametrically opposed. He favors snazzy new buildings and I favor buildings that fit into the surrounding historical character. Even if the historical character has already been destroyed by previous development, it always makes sense to rebuild it, and you gotta start somewhere. If that sounds relatively boring – it involves copying the past, a no-no for the mods – it produces neighborhoods and districts that are healthy and humane in a way that snazzy new buildings never do.

Curiously, the preference for the snazzy new over the healthy, humane old styles has been the establishment view of the stodgy architectural profession for seventy or eighty years now – even though the public prefers the graceful old styles by dramatically large margins, according to every study ever done. People are most confortable with what they are familiar with and understand – and why shouldn’t they be?

Will is an unusually articulate proponent of the snazzy “modernist” styles. Today’s modernism is watered down and might well be called “plasticky,” to judge by what has been built in the 195 District and elsewhere in town. Will normally does not favor this “plasticky” style, and keeps hoping architects will come up with something that’s both snazzy and good, but he is doomed to be disappointed.

Of the nine proposals submitted for Parcel 5, Will seems to like the one by local firm ZDS best. He describes it as “wickedly audacious,” a description that by itself would cause me to assume I will dislike it. It is pictured in the lower left frame of the images up above. It is not the least bit audacious, but is instead a typical layering of flat, glassy elements with no apparent atypical features, other than that ZDS is local. It is not just another Boston firm that farms out its least senior architects to handle commissions in Providence. Will says ZDS is “taking a chance, daring to be bold.” Huh? He then admits that ZDS is a “successful but unimaginative firm that has given the city so many architectural duds.” Its hotel on Parcel 12 at the northeast corner of Kennedy Plaza is its best (and its first) work in Providence, It seems as if it is trying to be historic, but fails to avoid the dread “plasticky.”

Will also likes the proposal by Wade/Keating, which works mostly around Boston. Its proposal for an art and design center at Parcel 5’s corner of South Main and Wickenden is the most unusual of the nine designs, and is at the center of the images up above. It actually has gables, which I thought had been banned half a century ago! Alas, it has all the hallmarks of succumbing to “plasticky” once its slick pallet of materials is revealed at some later meeting.

All the other seven proposals are type-cast refugees from the commission’s 195 playbook, where its yen for bad architecture is laid out for all to see. Will writes that the commission has a “track record in attracting quality architectural design.” No, the commission has a track record of shooing away quality architectural design. This is shocking – because there is so much beauty in Providence for the commission to copy – but it is no surprise.

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To read other articles by David Brussat: https://rinewstoday.com/david-brussat-contributing-writer/

My freelance writing and editing on architecture and others addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally. I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002. I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat, Gato. If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, [email protected], or call (401) 351-0451.