Whilst I am not officially involved in documenting the transformation of Rhode Island Hall, I am still marginally involved in the process, and I am still interacting with and observing the building. This notebook continues my documentation of the building outside of an official capacity as I continue to cross its path, and as it sometimes crosses mine.

8/10/08

I went by the Joukowsky Institute for reasons unrelated to RI Hall, but found that a box of objects from RI Hall was sitting in the common area. The odd collection was found by the workmen gutting the building, mostly from the second floor attic space, but maybe also from the walls. I went through the stuff, and Brad and I photographed everything. There were several bones, one thought to be human, and one burnt (by the 1905-7 fire?), a taxidermied mouse, a reptile skin with a label denoting it was donated by Jenks, a notebook (presumably a students), an old photograph of campus, several bricks, an old hat, two unidentified wooden fixtures, and two shells.

10/10/08

At 2:30 there was a visit to RI Hall arranged for some members of the Institute, so I tagged along. Sue Alcock, Chris Witmore, and about 7 grad students plus myself went over, and were given hard hats and safety glasses. We entered through the fire escape on the North side, into what had been classroom 201. We only had access to the second floor although we could see down to the first floor. The building was completely gutted, with all the ceilings and room divisions removed. The building fabric that denoted the 1874 and 1904 additions were there, and the staircase that led to the second floor attic remained. It’s funny, it actually looked a lot more in place with its surroundings now, rather than the time capsule effect it had last semester. Getting to see the traces of how the fabric of the building had been changed and developed was really exciting, and the chance to experience the space without the arbitrary divisions that evolved over time was wonderful. But the speed with which the gutting has happened, and the sight of beams and rafters being sawn off one by one, meant that the overall effect was of a bare skeleton. Having spent so much time in the building last semester, it was really quite sad to see the building’s history brutally exposed and in the process of being torn out.

14/10/08

This semester I have the privilege to be taking a class with Prof. Robert Emlen, the University curator, and I had emailed him last semester about RI Hall when trying to track down the blueprints. I got a chance to talk to him about the project, and he said he had some photos of RI Hall from 1995 when they had been restoring the exterior, and he had happened to be walking by with his camera. He put them on a CD for me, and I was able to upload them to the wiki, adding to the collection of archival photography of the building.

20/10/08

I met up with Whit, who is continuing to document The Transformation of Rhode Island Hall this semester, to put the material culture recovered from the building into the archive. We were able to identify some of the items better. I identified one of the wooden fixtures as the horizontal rung of the stands for taxidermied birds, happening to spot it in the photo of the Taxidermy Class, 1875. The other seems to also be some kind of stand for specimens, identified by some careful examination of the scribbles on the bottom. Whit decoded on phrase as ‘Professor Bumpus’, who must have been the Herman Carey Bumpus who appears in the Encyclopedia Brunoniana (Wikipedia page for Herman Carey Bumpus). We decoded the writing on the front of the notebook as saying it was from the Brown Bookstore- it would be interesting to investigate when the BB was founded. The objects date from different time periods, and form an interesting collection. We had fun getting to examine them closer. I think they will appear on Whit’s material culture page, and hopefully we will gain some more information about them and it will get updated on his site.

11/11/08

I went by the Institute to check on the material culture that I had removed from the building last semester, and moved it up to the vault with the items recovered this semester. Also included are some of the objects I proposed be removed and archived last semester, although it seems that not all the proposed material culture was there or able to be removed. There is also a door handle/lock mechanism, but I don’t know where in the building this came from. Diana also handed me an unidentified wooden object that was recovered from the building a few weeks ago, which I labelled and added to the collection.

19/11/08

The Time Capsule was placed under the building today, complete with procession and ceremony. People probably think we're a little insane. It's such an interesting idea because we are preserving material culture that we intend to be found- this is a very different experience from my collection of material culture in RI Hall that I came across randomly, or that has shown up during the demolition. These objects came into our hands by chance, and they have changed over the years, after being stuck up in the attic, and forgotten about. The time capsule is consciously preserving material culture for posterity, and contains a carefully thought through collection of things to represent 'life at Brown', 'a day in the J Institute'. '2008' etc. Very different to the past material culture from RI Hall that forms a nowhere near as comprehensive cross-section of 'life in the past'. The time capsule represents ourselves as we want to be seen by the future, we are trying to control what they base their interpretations of our present on, and in doing so influence those interpretations. The idea of a time capsule is an interesting phenomenon.

4/12/08

I accompanied Whit and Chris Witmore when they went into the building this afternoon. The first and second floors have been completely removed, and the elevator shaft is in the process of being installed. The walls on either side of the spiral staircase, like all the other walls, have been stripped down to the stone for some time, but today I noticed that there is a depression on either side from the shape of the staircase. All traces of the floor have been removed, so the ground beneath the building is accessible. Whit pointed out to me where they had buried the time capsule, and I could see where the groundwater was seeping through around the new foundations for a support pillar that were laid. We used a torch (a flashlight, not a fiery brand) to poke around some of the darker corners. I am really excited about the plans to have some of the stone walls accessible in the finished Institute. There is going to be a recess in the wall that will leave a strip of stone exposed, which is more than I hoped for when we talked about some of these ideas last semester. All in all, it was an extremely interesting day regarding RI Hall.