If this is the new bridge to the Knowledge District it should be something bold and modern. This is a great opportunity to make a design statement for Providence as the Creative Capital. We have a half-dozen traditional bridges in Waterplace Park, let’s do something bold.

The claim of a secret conspiracy seems rather far fetched. As I understand it the committee has been meeting for months and they have been concerned that the designs submitted thus far, all by a single architect who was not selected by any public process, were too mundane and not worthy of the opportunity presented by this new site that will lead to the new Knowledge District — home to cutting edge research firms and the new med school.

Hearing of this frustration a local firm volunteered to sketch out an alternative just to get a discussion started — a design that has not yet even been shown to the committee. Their hesitancy to release the design to the public at this point comes entirely from a courtesy the new designers felt toward the committee and its deliberative process. As they have not yet been invited to show their design to the committee, it seemed inappropriate to suddenly be courting controversy in a newspaper column.

Instead the new team is urging the committee to consider opening the design process up to the public and to a variety of designers. To release their design to the Pro Jo before the committee has even seen it would be discourteous to the committee and disruptive of the open call and public review process they feel would best serve the city in this design process.

The charge in comments below about city taxpayer funds being wasted are also entirely wrong. If anything this is a great example of creative problem solving by the government and community leadership from the design community. We have now replaced a severely over-taxed and outdated I-195 bridge with a new bridge and a more thoughtful site placement of the interstate junction. As part of this exemplary project, much needed and much admired, the old bridge cannot be left as a rusting hulk, but must be removed with federal highway funds already budgeted for the new improved highway alignment.

Instead of spending $2 million on demolishing the existing stone piers, RIDOT realized they could preserve the elegant stone piers (the only attractive element from the original bridge) and recycle them and give the community a much needed pedestrian bridge with the money saved.

This was a brilliant example of our government working at its best. The Providence design community’s interest (all of them volunteering their time) in promoting a design discussion that would invite a variety of compelling and transformative bridge designs for the commtitee’s and the public’s review is equally proper and commendable.

Sadly an entirely false story about a non-existent “secret” cabal to force a horrific “modern” design upon an unsuspecting public seems to make for better newspaper copy.

One would hope that the real story of competent and thoughtful civil servants saving the public’s money while working cooperatively and cordially with a dedicated group of design professionals all volunteering their time would be worthy of coverage — and commendation — in a column dedicated to the design future of our downtown.

Perhaps the good doctor disagrees.

posted 8:21 PM on August 2, 2010 by projo.com member pablo fortuna

On thinking further about the good doctor’s concerns over alleged secret proceedings and his nostalgia for “traditional” approaches, some other observations seem appropriate.

Ironically, the “traditional” bridge design that Brussat is so stridently championing was actually the design that resulted from a “secret” process where only one architect was even permitted to present designs to the committee. But then again, a pre-determined selection process insuring a single favored architect must be better, because it is indeed a long-standing “tradition”.

That an honorable effort by Studio Providence to stimulate a public dialog over a variety of designs should be so entirely misrepresented in the newspaper as a “secret” “stealth” attack is indeed rich. For while disguised as a call for more public dialog, the column was actually the result of a classic insider leak and was intended as a preemptive strike against further dialog. The hope was to prevent the community from engaging in a more public review of a variety of bridge designs and to disparage a design not yet even presented for consideration.

Secret selection processes and irresponsible newspaper commentary deployed to obscure the truth for the benefit of the well connected are indeed quite “traditional” in the history of architecture.

But as Hamlet so aptly observed, there are some traditions more honored in the breech.

Let’s embrace a bold new world in Providence and welcome a public review of a wide variety of bold new designs. And may we boldly leave behind the tired “traditions” of political patronage, petty posturing and impoverished design.

Our city deserves nothing less.

posted 11:32 PM on August 2, 2010 by projo.com member pablo fortuna

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Source: http://fpv-flieger.de/archiv/22-sopwithcamel.html

For those under 50, here’s what the Sopwith Camel looks like.  We’re still trying to figure out how to combine it with the gas station.

Source: http://alloveralbany.com/images/gas_station_four_dollar_gas.jpg

Studio Providence, L.L.C.  was established as a joint practice between Friedrich St. Florian Architect and 3SIX0 Architecture two years ago.

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All of this comes to mind when thinking of one beginning, one set of beginnings, a Rashomon set of stories of beginnings of a project that started more than 35 years ago. The stories, not the authorship of the project, may cohere.

The project involves an idea, the birth of an idea back in the early sixties, in New York. It involves one of countless ideas that went into the making of Lincoln Center, more specifically, the making of the Opera House in Lincoln Center. And more specifically than that, the idea behind the origin of the points of light that drop from its ceiling. I am referring to the design of the Chandeliers in the Metropolitan Opera House.

Metropolitan Opera House Chandeliers

You may have seen them. They make a spectacle at the start of every performance, an explosion of light refracting from crystals that ascend, literally ascend, to the ceiling to announce the beginning of an opera.

Genesis, the ultimate beginning, makes one think of the first book of the Bible for its believers, the origin of the universe as The Big Bang for non believers. Interestingly, physical evidence for The Big Bang was developed at about the same time as the Metropolitan Opera House design was being developed. With optical telescopes, the space between stars and planets is black; but with a radio telescope, a glow is visible; this glow is cosmic radiation. In 1964, scientists explained that this radiation is leftover from the origin of the universe, the first physical evidence of The Big Bang.  There was excitement in the media about this discovery. The world was looking up and out into space. The U.S. and Soviet space program was in full swing. This context is the basis of a story of origin of the design of the chandeliers.

About the same time, a year earlier to be precise, The Austrian Government announced that it would make a donation to the new Metropolitan Opera House: a set of crystal chandeliers for its foyer and auditorium.  In July of 1963, Hans Harald Rath of J. & L. Lobmeyr, a celebrated Viennese crystal and chandelier manufacturing company, came to New York to discuss the design of the chandeliers with Wallace Harrison of Harrison and Abramovitz,  the architect of the Opera House itself.

Three years ago, I met Leonid Rath, the grandson of Dr. Rath at the ICFF.  Both Leonid and his brother Johannes are the current head of J. & L. Lobmeyr. Mr. Rath was in New York to begin discussions of the dismantling and cleaning of the Met’s chandeliers. He told me that when his grandfather and WKH met to discuss the chandeliers, Harrison gave Hans Harald Rath a book on galaxies. This book served as inspiration for the chandeliers’ design. The crystals are held by metal rods that radiate out from the center of the chandeliers, making them appear like starburst constellations. They were installed in May 1966 and became known as sputniks, after the Soviet space satellites, from the night the Met opened.

On Sept. 13 1966, 3800 people were in the audience for opening night of the Opera House. It was an exciting evening, the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. The first ovation exploded as the curtain was lifted and 21 chandeliers rose toward the ceiling.  Wallace K. Harrison, Hans Rath and my father were there. This brings me to a second story of the chandeliers’ genesis.

The genesis of genesis has an Old English origin of gignesthai meaning birth. The etymological dictionary entry states, “be born…see KIN.” While birth is the beginning of one that is distinct; kin carry shared family lines and history.

My father, Tad Leski, far left, with draftsman, and Wallace K. Harrison far right.

My father, Tadeusz Leski is an architect; and a painter. He was a designer for Harrison and Abramovitz.  Harrison was a painter and an architect like my father. He was also a statesman, a businessman, and spent time in high profile social circles being [1] linked by marriage, socially and professionally to the Rockefeller family. This consumed his time.  My father, who entered H&A in 1953, straight off the boat, so to speak, was a recent immigrant to this country. He had survived the war; fighting as a Pole in the French army getting captured and escaping work camps. He ended up in London where he finished architecture school and had just left England with his wife and young daughter and a portfolio of drawings under his arm. Harrison recognized the artist and architect in my father. They were close because of it. So close, that my father designed and built a house for our family on a piece of property adjacent to Harrison’s own house. It seemed to me that Harrison was drawn to my father and the kind of conversations they could have. They could converse by standing over sketches, marker or pencil in hand. I imagine that my father’s English wasn’t so good back then; but, he could draw beautifully. These exchanges were recluse for Harrison. He got to speak his favorite language of gesture, mark, space and form. It was a respite from the countless board meetings that I am sure Harrison had to attend.

My father was the designer for the Metropolitan Opera House—as he was for many H&A projects. And he prepared the initial design sketches as he always did, countless fast perspective sketches done in marker or ink and white paint washes on trace, vellum or even cardboard. He would meet with WKH and separate them out based upon strengths and weaknesses. The sketches would become orthographic projections—or plan, section and elevation, and models. Eventually the design would be rendered with a ruling pen and gouache.

My father, Tad Leski on the job site of the Metropolitan Opera House. He is standing to the left of Wallace K. Harrison

Along the way, in preparation for one of the meetings, my father was hurriedly finishing a perspective sketch of the Met’s interior. One fault of my father’s was that he never knew when to stop a painting or a drawing until it was too late. He would obsess over the work, changing one thing and adding another until, as he used to say, “he made a mess of it.” His disgust with the work because of the one too many changes, would make him abandon it; and only then was it done. So he was characteristically “finishing” this sketch of the Met’s interior with markers and india ink. In the rush to finish, as a charged brush traveled from a bottle of ink; it happened, a splatter –a fat drop of black ink—fell from the brush. The splatter extended across the image, resembling an explosion of fireworks. “Boże” (oh god) my father thought. “I made a mess of it.” He dabbed the splatter to soak up some ink.  And then he thought that it looked like the explosion of light from a chandelier. He added white paint to the splattered droplets and attached them with lines so that it could be interpreted to be the points of refracted light projecting from an abstracted chandelier.

One of hundreds of interior sketches for the Opera House by Tad Leski

Harrison thought the sketches were great. And he particularly liked the idea of the exploded geometry of the splatter as the form of the chandeliers.  An accident was the genesis of the Chandeliers of the Metropolitan Opera House. A drop of ink followed the laws of gravity, surface tension and impact instead of the intentions of the artist. This moment of genesis is suspended like a drop of ink over a page just beyond where my father had intended and before an idea of exploded geometry came to light.

Origins are critical in establishing authorship. But like any beginning, the origin of a work of art or invention is not crystal clear. Constellations, the dots of light in the sky that we connect and name, are imaginary. They inspire myths of princesses, heroes, winged horses and sea monsters. We mentally connect the dots of light as mnemonic devices. Narrative connections serve our imagination and memory. The actual physical locations of these points of light are stars light years away from us, spread out in three and four dimensions. From another point of view, away from the Earth, the constellations would not be recognizable and could not be connected the same way. Different points of view inspire different stories which inform memory and shape what we know.

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EXTERIOR NORTHWEST OVERALL

Jack returned to Haiti with Plan International in May as architect and construction supervisor in charge of the construction of the first classrooms to be located in Jacmel. A construction team of fifteen local young men were hired for the construction team. The team had limited to no carpentry experience so carpentry skills had to be taught to them. In two weeks the construction team under Jack’s supervision and guidance were able to complete one classroom module and two others are near completion. The Jacmel construction team will continue to build the classrooms in Jacmel. Construction contracts have been awarded to local construction companies for the first set of eighteen buildings in Croix-des-Bouquets.

EXTERIOR SOUTHWEST OVERALL

EXTERIOR SOUTH ELEVATION

INTERIOR CORNER WITH BENCHES

INTERIOR OVERALL

INTERIOR WITH CHALKBOARD

Plan International currently plans to build ninety of the classroom buildings in Haiti (two fifty student classrooms per building). Forty of them are to be located in the southern coastal port city of Jacmel and fifty are to be located in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets (Port au Prince). There are hopes to expand the construction program to other locations throughout Haiti.

SCHOOLS 2 AND 3 UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Founded over 70 years ago, Plan International is one of the oldest and largest children’s development organizations in the world. Plan works in 48 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas to promote child rights and lift millions of children out of poverty.

Plan works with more than 3,500,000 families and their communities each year.
Plan is independent, with no religious, political or governmental affiliations.
Plan’s US national office and headquarters is located in Warwick, RI.

Plan International

_________________________
Design Proposal Renderings:

(Tim DeCoster and Nick Croft assisted in the project renderings)

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Paleus Melisanda: Blue Vevet by Alfred DeCredico

I am Alfred DeCredico’s friend and colleague. This chapter of our friendship and colleagueship started with the words, “he’s gone,” on the phone.

Honor him; “yes,” but I am not done with Alfred DeCredico. There are some artists or architects whose work you absorb pouring over pages for years and then you’re full. I did that with Louis Kahn’s work and I’m done. There are friends that part company, move-on—done. I’m not done with Alfred DeCredico. The world is not done with Alfred DeCredico. And I want to think about continuing.

So I made a list.  This is  A L F R E D  V.  D E C R E D I C O :

Ask, “What do you think about _________?”

Lobster bisque, a bushel of oysters and seaweed, Osso bucco, peach tart.

Fight the censors.

Recognize the intelligence of others.

Eat the bone marrow.

Drawing is everything.

Vice Versa

Deconstruct chaos.

Elixir of life.

Cohere Entropy.

Really laugh.

Everything isn’t wrong with double negatives.

Don’t hide in the politically correct.

In-tolerate intellectual laziness.

Couragio.

Open mind vices.

_______________________

Alfred  DeCredico died on Saturday December 26, 2009.  He was an Artist & a Professor of Foundation Studies Drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design.  A memorial service was held for him on Saturday, April 10th.

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On December 10, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects held its annual awards ceremony at the Narragansett Towers in southern Rhode Island. This year we submitted East Side Addition (Residential), Old Stone House Inn (Adaptive Reuse), Old Stone House Spa and Restaurant (Interior), and Au Bon Pain (Commercial/Industrial) –all four received Merit Awards in their respective categories. Take a look at our submissions and view other winners on AIA/RI’s website.

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It blew my mind.

I also got the opportunity to make a presentation, that I call, “Cohering Entropy: Navigating the Creative Process.” You can read my entire lecture notes here. Some notes from parts of my talk:

A strange thing happened about 20 years ago, very early on in my career as a teacher. I gave a group of students this painting by Paul Klee, called Polyphonically Enclosed White, and I asked them to build the third dimension using only white glue and white museum board.

One of the students, John Schroeder, decided that he would assign different heights to each colored rectangle. He couldn’t tell me why he was doing this…but there was something about his sense of purpose that made me step aside and watch. He worked through the night and built this object and when he was done he held it up to the indirect sunlight coming from the north side of the building.
This is what he saw. He had somehow osmotically channeled the work of Paul Klee.

I am showing you this, not to mystify things… in fact….there is a good explanation of why the light is refracted in this way given the differing sizes and heights of this cluster of tubes. But there isn’t an easy explanation of how John arrived at this idea. This is what interests me: how we get there…or how we navigate the creative process.

I have been surprised and awed by the imagination many times since then. It has made me think I am an atheist and believe I am not. This dilemma draws me into the creative process in my teaching and my work.

How an artist gets to a discovery or invention is mystified in our culture…it’s outside the umbrella of words like “talent” or “genius.” These words keep us from seeing what is at work and keeps it in the periphery and not to be depended upon. I like to call talent or creative abilities, intelligences. One of the most important intelligences for an artist is sensibility. “Sensibility”—keen intellectual perception—not the optics of the eye or capacity of the sensory organs—but how we take this information and form a concept of the world and our place it. Sensibility is on the cusp between percept and concept…which is at the heart of intelligence.

. . .

Search engines gather for us. The founders of Google, stated that “if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, you’d be better off.” And that he and his partner’s ambition for “perfect search engine” would be one that could understand exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.”

My ambition is the opposite: Creativity….is not in knowledge but in the way towards knowing. Discovery is about arriving somewhere other than where you wanted or expected. And invention is moving outside of what is known.

. . .

Dwelling in uncertainty is key to growth and moving beyond the known through the imagination.

Creative, process are two words neither of which are creative and both are more processed than process.I think of it as cohering entropy. A creative work makes its own necessity by cohering what wasn’t before and now we don’t want undone. Cohering by recognizing connections from the astronomical to the metabolic, by putting together what precedes, follows and is next to: coherence gathered, and meaning made.

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A new video of the Biltmore Hotel Porte Cochère project has been posted on 3six0’s YouTube channel. The evolution of the project is condensed into a 30 second animation that illustrates material reasoning driven by the net-like matrix of the hotel’s lobby ceiling, and the canopy’s function as a sheltering entry-marker that reverberates with the historic architecture of the Biltmore Hotel and the city of Providence.

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On July 2009 Kolbe and Kolbe Window Manufactory invited our office to Wisconsin. They were not only so kind as to take us to their factory, but also schedule a number of interesting events for our brief visit. Among these were:  a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, a visit to Aldo Leopold Foundation Headquarters (the first LEED-platinum certified building) and the Cardinal floating glass factory.

These pictures of the glass factory capture some moments along its assembly line:  A mound of sand and cullets waiting to be fed to the furnace, its transformation to molding glass and its division into panels to name a few.

This assembly line has been running continuously for 12 years and for its optimized performance this continuity has not been broken.  All the glass produced in this factory has been cut from a single stretched sheet of glass. One of the processes that particularly called my attention along this trajectory was the moment in which the glass is cut. The mechanisms of this machinery respond to the seemingly simple necessity of cutting straight edge panels from a moving ribbon.

After being transformed into molding glass, a long tongue of glass stretches out from the furnace. This hot taffy-like material is carried on a conveyor by rubber wheels. As this continuity is to be maintained, to achieve a right angle panel the blade is set at a particular angle to accommodate the speed at which the glass travels. In other words, to achieve a rectangular panel the blade cuts the moving glass at a diagonal.

Interesting facts from our guide: Glass is never in a true solid state.  The inert medium in which the glass is suspended is liquid nitrogen. As mentioned before, the furnace has not been shut down in 12 years making its maintenance cumbersome as the molding glass is frozen in order to repair the damaged sections.

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