"In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis, stands a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have    every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making   it the ideal city...

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Hidden beneath Providence's rich architectural heritage lies another story—that of its unbuilt architecture: of urban visions before their time, ambitious designs that were not needed, and detailed projects that were abolished at the last minute. Unbuilt Providence tell that story in drawings and models of buildings and urban designs for the city that were considered during the last 150 years but never executed. These rarely seen works—often of considerable artistic merit—document great ambitions, personal flights of fancy and sweeping urban visions.

The reasons why the designs in this exhibition remain fiction are manifold. But all fifteen projects speak of the lively architectural culture that Providence has enjoyed for a very long time and of the city's ambitions and constant love for change. Again and again, Providence attracted architects of national reputation, often providing them with a testing ground for new ideas.

Often unexecuted projects contain ideas in pure form--not yet contaminated by the forces of reality, such as cost, feasibility, and the desires of the client. Such projects nevertheless can exert considerable influence. Raymond Hood's career as a skyscraper designer began with his project for Providence. For Brown's Geo-Math Building, I. M. Pei tried out an aesthetic that he would apply successfully later, culminating in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Felix Candela's stadium design foreshadowed solutions for wide-span roofs, and the "steps of Providence" by Jorge Silvetti and Rodolfo Machado provided important inspiration for Rafael Moneo's recent design for a new addition to the RISD Museum.

In some cases we may gratefully acknowledge the wisdom or circumstances that prevented the completion of projects included here, while in others we might mourn the paths not taken. If Thomas Tefft's exchange had been built in 1856, if William Lescaze's Soldier's and Sailor's Memorial had won the 1926 competition, or if Erich Mendelsohn's design for Temple Beth El had been successful, they all would today be considered milestones in American architecture.

The projects included in Unbuilt Providence are:

Thomas Alexander Tefft, Merchants' Exchange , 1856

Thomas Alexander Tefft / Samuel J. F. Thayer, Designs for City Hall, Providence, ca. 1854

Raymond Hood, New Providence Court House , 1916

William Lescaze / Albert Harkness Designs for Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, 1927-29

Erich Mendelsohn Design for Community Center and Beth-El Synagogue , 1951

William Warner, Skyscrapers for Benefit Street , 1959

Dieter Hammerschlag, Plan for Downtown Providence 1970

Felix Candela, Athletic Complex for Brown University , 1968

I.M. Pei, Brown University Geo Math Building , 1969

Paul Rudolph, Hospital Trust Tower , 1969

Machado and Silvetti, The Steps of Providence , 1980

Donald Judd and Lauretta Vinciarelli, Structures for Kennedy Plaza , 1984

William Warner, River Relocation Project , 1985

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, Commercial Building for Parcel 9 of Capitol Center , 1999

Unbuilt Providence grew out of research by students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, in particular John Harwood, Andrew Lyon, Jacob Reidel, Andrea Abramoff, Tylene Bautista, Caroline Dowling, Matthew Emond, Catherine Gilbane, Marc Guberman, Jacqui Hogans, Daniel Mermel, Jahanaz Mirza, Mark Peterson, Nicholas Risteen, Andrew Smyth, Ryan Tunstall, and Alok Sachdeva.

The exhibition was curated by Dietrich Neumann and organized by the David Winton Bell Gallery. Financial support was generously provided by Chancellor Emeritus Artemis Joukowsky, the Dean of the College, the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, the Creative Arts Council, and the Department of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design.