Greater City Providence

PROPOSED: Brown’s Creative Arts Center

Could this be the breakthrough building that RISD’s Chase Center was supposed to be?

We’ll see… This coming week (details to follow) Brown will be having a public meeting where the architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (very cool website, BTW) will take everyone on a virtual tour of the proposed multidisciplinary arts center at Brown that is slated to start construction next Summer and finish in 2010/11-ish.

It will be located along Angell Street and be behind the Brown Bookstore Building, fronting the sidewalk. Its architecture is dramatic to say the least. Check out the images above and below (there’s more on the firm’s website). I’m not sure I actually like it yet, but it’s unambiguously ambitious, with a fascinating tiered floorplan.

One wonders through… If the College Hill neighborhood folks fainted at the site of Brown’s conservative Hillel and Science buildings, how many heart attacks will this induce?

Bret Ancowitz

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