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Methods

The most important aspect of this thesis project was perhaps the documentation of the renovation of Rhode Island Hall from August of 2008 to the summer of 2009. Nuding (2008) had previously collected and studied the historical documents relating to Rhode Island Hall, and she had also begun to document the state of the building immediately preceding the renovation. Next, the transformation of Rhode Island Hall itself needed to be documented, and doing so created significant challenges. The inclination is to attempt to document every moment: every removal of a wall or floor beam, every discarding of trash, every installation of a new floor or wall. However, such a task would be impossible, and, unfortunately, constraints are always present.

Time was the largest obstacle to a more thorough documentation, as I could not be present during every crucial stage of renovation. Unfortunately, the major construction events took place before noon, usually at the same time as classes. However, I was able to document the renovation of Rhode Island Hall occasionally every day a week during the end of January and the beginning of February, and the rest of the year, I made an effort to visit the building at least three days a week. Another constraint that proved difficult to bypass was due to the nature of the project as taking place on a construction site. Occasionally, entry into and movement inside the building was delayed due to my effort to stay out of the way of the construction work. Fortunately, I was able to correspond with the supervisors of the renovation in order to visit Rhode Island Hall at times when the most important stages of the renovation occurred; for example, when decking was being installed on the first floor.

Every attempt to be as thorough as possible was made. While documenting the restoration of the building, varieties of media were employed, including photography, video, Gigapan, and even audio recording. Photographs were used to frame specific areas of the building that revealed an interesting stage of the renovation. Video recording helped to provide a context for these individual snapshots. One form of video recording was an attempt to document all areas of Rhode Island Hall, from the floor to the ceiling, in 360-degrees. While filming, I walked transects on each floor, first from east to west and back, then from north to south and back. These transects were each walked three times, with the camera facing forward, then angled upward, and finally angled downward. Beginning in December, the total number of transects filmed was twenty-four: twelve in the original western section of the building and twelve in the eastern 1874 addition. As the first and second floors were constructed, the number of transects doubled and tripled, respectively.

The process of converting the transformations of Rhode Island Hall into words is challenging, yet the photographs and videos that are contained in this thesis and posted online should help to bridge the gaps between materiality and reference (Witmore 2004). No one will ever be able to document the transformation of Rhode Island Hall that occurred during 2008 and 2009, but through the chain of references, or Latour’s (1999: 24) “circulating reference,” provided by this project, the hope is that the information gained can be examined and reexamined in order to remember a snapshot in time of Rhode Island Hall.

The Renovation

Though preparations had been made years in advance, the actual renovations of Rhode Island Hall only began in August of 2008. The early renovation work in the building was concerned primarily with ensuring the safety of workers and students. The surrounding area of Rhode Island Hall was fenced off, including the pathway on the west side of the building that provides access from George Street to the Quiet Green and the sidewalk on the southern end of the building along George Street. Closing these areas of the campus to pedestrian access caused a surprising confusion to members of the Brown community as well as visitors to the campus, exemplifying the importance of Rhode Island Hall as a central fixture on campus. The pathways that occupy the space surrounding Rhode Island Hall were previously used on a daily basis, and the formation of a blockade of fences and construction materials limited ingress to the buildings on and near the Main Green. The placement of maps and signs by Brown University Facilities Management, however, served to assist anyone unfamiliar with the campus to find his or her way, and Rhode Island Hall’s shift from public space to restricted construction site was rather smooth, considering the site of the building in an active part of campus.

Safety was paramount not only surrounding the exterior space of Rhode Island Hall but also inside the building. The presence of asbestos inside the building was, of course, a major health concern, and its removal was necessary before any other steps could be made to restore the building’s interior. Asbestos was banned in the United States in 1989, when the EPA issued an Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule (though subsequent Supreme Court cases have qualified this law) due to the health concerns surrounding the affects of asbestos on the respiratory system (EPA 1999). Because the interior of Rhode Island Hall was last renovated in 1982, asbestos still remained inside the walls and ceilings of the upper floors.

Though everything above the first floor was closed off in September for the procedure of asbestos abatement, I was able to document the basement before interior gutting began. This documentation provides the last glimpse of Rhode Island Hall as most current students and professors on campus remember the building. The experience was surreal. The basement had almost always been occupied by students attending classes or by writing fellows working in their offices. The same space existed, but its previous function had become obsolete, as the presence of classroom equipment and writing on the chalkboards could attest to the prior use of the building. Now the basement was vacant, and it had already taken on qualities of a construction site, as water had begun to enter the building through the north wall into the basement. Water remained a major difficulty throughout restoration, and the basement would periodically flood during the first few months of restoration, either from groundwater, rainwater, or snow melt.

Access into the building remained a constant challenge for me, as safety remained the top concern of the contractors for Shawmut. By October, I was finally given my first walkthrough of the building. This walkthrough, which took place on October 1st, provided a look at Rhode Island Hall in transition, as the ceiling above the second floor had already been removed, and the original slate stone construction of the building had been revealed (Figure 5.01). Many of those involved with the project were impressed with the skill needed to construct such walls entirely out of rocks stacked one on the other. One worker even remarked “We couldn’t do that nowadays!” Interest in the history and architecture of Rhode Island Hall seemed to be a consensus among the construction workers involved in the renovation, and an aura of excitement pervaded the project from the beginning. Other workers, including architect Nick Winton, though intrigued by the building, were somewhat unnerved by the appearance of the building throughout the renovation, as the dark, bare quality of Rhode Island Hall after the removal of the walls and floors was certainly eerie (Winton 2008). However, during the month of October, especially close to noon, sunlight would fill the entire first floor of the building through the skylight, emphasizing the prior neglect of natural lighting in the building for the past fifteen years.

Landscape work on the exterior of the building provided another look at Rhode Island Hall’s walls. On the northern side of the building, a drainage pipe was installed, necessitating the removal of a large cylindrical section of the wall. This side effect of the installation of a pipe created an opportunity to study a cross-section of wall (Figure 5.02), showing the variety of materials used: from slate to mortar to stucco to the more recent concrete. Though the walls of Rhode Island Hall are fairly thick (almost two feet thick), the stucco itself is relatively thin (only a few inches). The thickness of the stucco would later prove critical to the debate surrounding solving the issue of stucco during the 2008-2009 renovations.

The wooden stairways connecting the basement to the first and second floors, as well as the small staircase leading to the attic space remained during the month of October, providing an interesting contrast between the building’s recent past and its rapid transformation into its future use (Figure 5.03). Though the staircase leading to the attic was still in place, it essentially led nowhere, and though the walls had not yet been removed their destruction was impending (Figure 5.04). And though the second floor had not yet been removed, a section of floor in the middle of the building had been cut out, where the new Stair C would be installed months later.

The stripping of the building’s walls, however, provided more information regarding the history and past uses of the building – information that was often left out of the documentary evidence stored in the University Archives. John Cherry, a professor at the Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology, first pointed me to the number and design of the chimneys in the building. Brick chimneys were present on each wall, including inside both the original 1840 building and inside the 1874 addition. Each chimney separated into two shafts towards its base, which, according to architect Nick Winton, would have provided coal heating in each room (Winton 2008).

Material Culture

The initial interior demolition of Rhode Island Hall also led to other crucial discoveries of material culture inside the walls and the attic of the building. Attics often become inevitable time capsules as unused and unwanted objects are typically stored in such spaces. Indeed, shortly after most of the display cases from the Museum of Natural History were discarded near the Seekonk River, one survivor of the exhibits was recovered from the attic of Van Wickle Hall (Mitchell 1993: 398). Almost a century later, during the fall interior demolition of Rhode Island Hall, the construction workers diligently recovered a number of material remains from the walls of the building. Due to the nature of their work, the construction workers were unable to document when and where the artifacts were uncovered; however, their recovery certainly took place in October of 2008, probably from some of the previously untouched walls in the attic space of Rhode Island Hall. These artifacts reinforce much of the documented history of Rhode Island Hall and Brown University, but they also tell their own story, rarely recorded in writing.

One can only imagine the surprise of one of the construction workers when he first caught sight of a rolled up alligator skin (Figure 5.05) that had just been set free from a century-year-old wall. This skin (and most of the other recovered objects) most likely dates to the period when Rhode Island Hall served as a natural history museum. Indeed, many of the exhibits were located in the upper levels of the building, and in later years natural history objects were banished to the attic to create more space for students. What caused some objects to be discarded and others to be stored in the attic may never be known, but undoubtedly the recovered material culture from the attic of Rhode Island Hall had been forgotten and languished for many years out of sight until now.

Though most of the objects lack any obvious label, some fortunately still have their original tags attached. Even then, however, the identities of certain artifacts proved difficult to discern. For instance, one object clearly belonged to the skin of some animal with scales (Figure 5.06). According to the tag, the object is a “Battery of a Torpedo.” Neither the words battery nor torpedo conjure any images of animals; however, beneath these words is the Latin name “Torpedo Occidentalis.” Even this scientific name has become archaic – the species is today known as “Torpedo nobiliana,” commonly referred to as the Atlantic Torpedo, or an electric ray (Hamlett 1999). Battery, then, refers to the electrically charged part of the animal. If this object had been lacking a tag, its identification would have been impossible, even to an educated marine biologist, as the object had become so dry. The tag from the electric ray also shows the words “Donor J.W.P. Jenks,” the curator of the Museum of Natural History and its major donor. Other objects provide information about other important figures in Rhode Island Hall’s history.

One of these objects is a fairly nondescript wooden stand (Figure 5.07). The stand is only a few inches high and shows no traces of paint or decoration. However, the bottom of the wooden stand is truly intriguing and telling – it is covered with scribbles and markings in pencil. These scribbles represent handwriting that is almost 100 years old. Some of the pencil markings read “R.I. Hall” and “30 this size” along with a list of measurements and other numbers of unknown meaning. Towards the edge of the base is the name “Prof. Bumpus,” a professor of comparative anatomy at Brown University and later Director of the American Museum of Natural History and President of Tufts College (Figure 5.08). While at Brown University, Hermon Carey Bumpus developed one of the earliest studies of evolutionary natural selection in the wild. The story, which is often retold in introductory Biology textbooks (Stanford et al. 2005), begins on a frigid day in the winter of 1898, when 136 house sparrows were found on the ground in Providence and taken to Hermon Bumpus at Rhode Island Hall. Professor Bumpus compared the anatomical traits of the sparrows that recovered with those of the sparrows that died of exposure. Bumpus determined, with the help of the equipment in Rhode Island Hall’s biology laboratory that those who deviate greatly from certain sizes and shapes are not favored by natural selection.

The wooden stand certainly brings to mind a fascinating story, but for what was it used? Another wooden object (Figure 5.09) recovered from Rhode Island Hall provides some insight. This wooden object is in the shape of a hammer and does not appear to have been part of a piece of furniture, such as a table or chair. After a careful perusal of archival photography, however, Elise Nuding was able to find an image showing such an object in use. A photograph of Jenks’ taxidermy class seated on the steps of Rhode Island Hall reveals the use of both wooden stands as mounts for the talons of owls and other raptors (Figure 5.10). Often in such cases a combination of historical sources and material culture can provide more information when used together than when examined separately.

An object that certainly dates to the period when Rhode Island Hall was home to the Museum of Natural History is a grotesque taxidermied mouse (Figure 5.13). How such a specimen remained preserved for a century – even the whiskers remain – must attest to Professor Jenks’ and his students’ mastery of taxidermy. A stand made of the same wood as those used for raptors supports the mouse.

Also dating to the Museum of Natural History period is a collection of bones (Figure 5.14). After examining the bones, Lisa Anderson determined that one is likely human. The bone itself is a long bone, probably a tibia, and is fractured toward the bottom. The fracture itself is recent, probably as recent as the 2008 renovation, as its color is white, differing considerably from the aged brown exterior of the bone. The bone has a number of drill holes, however, that are not recent. These drill holes would have been used to attach the bone to a stand and other bones. Thus, the tibia was part of a human display skeleton that was either part of the Museum of Natural History or the Biology Laboratory. Another bone, specifically a joint, may have also been a part of this skeleton, though it could also have belonged to another animal. Three other large bones belong to a large mammal, perhaps a cow. One of these bones, part of a femur shows evidence of scorching, probably from the 1906 fire. A large vertebra differs from the other bones in its lighter, almost white, color. Perhaps this bone was located in another part of the building that was not affected by the fire or other destructive conditions.

Other objects recovered in October 2008 are various articles and magazines from the turn of the 20th century. One of these articles, written by Albert Davis Mead, a graduate student under Hermon Bumpus as well as his successor to chairman of the Biology Department at Brown University, examines the habits and growth of marine crustaceans and experiments in lobster-culture. Another written document, an edition of Everybody’s Magazine, assigns a year of 1909 to much of the material. A slightly earlier document dates to 1907 and discusses the charts, plans, and sailing directions of the United States Hydrographic Office. Another catalog, however, dates to 1929 and is entitled “U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey: Charts, Maps, Coast Pilots, Tide Tables, Current Tables.” Based on the later date of this document and the topics of the two catalogs, they most likely date to a much later period of the building, probably when the Geology Department was housed in Rhode Island Hall as late as the 1980s.

Another interesting object recovered from Rhode Island Hall is a notebook purchased from the Brown Bookstore (Figure 5.11). Only the first page contains notes, and unfortunately these notes are illegible. The notebook, then, may date to either the period when Rhode Island Hall housed the Museum of Natural History or when it was home to the Geology Department. The Brown Bookstore was housed in Faunce House, originally named Rockefeller Hall from 1904 until 1970, when the Brown Office Building was constructed (Mitchell 1993).

An enigmatic photograph also accompanies the material culture recovered (Figure 5.12). The photograph shows an open space that resembles Brown University’s Quiet Green along with two buildings, one of which is similar to Slater Hall. However, the other building is a church that is not found on Brown University’s campus. On the reverse side of the photograph is written “View of Campus,” though what campus is unknown. The fact that a photo of a campus other than Brown University found its way into Rhode Island Hall is interesting, and the likelihood is that a professor or student brought it from his previous university, or perhaps the photograph was given to him by a friend or family member who attended the university.

A brown velvet hat is another object that makes up the material culture collected from Rhode Island Hall (Figure 5.08). The hat may have been recovered under similar circumstances as the Brown Bookstore Notebook, as both are similarly worn with plaster stains. Perhaps both were found inside the attic walls of the building. The hat resembles one that Hermon Bumpus holds in one of his portraits from the Brown University portrait collection. These hats were worn by members of the Brown Corporation beginning in 1912 and were commonly known as “beefeaters,” though the term is a misnomer. Hermon Bumpus served as Secretary of the Corporation from 1924 to 1937, though the hat found in Rhode Island Hall could have belonged to any member of the Corporation after the year 1912.

Another mundane object, an eyeglasses case, was also recovered from Rhode Island Hall in October of 2008. The case belongs to Bausch and Lomb, a company based in Rochester, New York that still produces eyeglasses today. The company was founded in 1853. Another germane object, though one that would certainly have been used often is a desk-chair made entirely of wood that was recovered from the attic space beneath Rhode Island Hall’s skylight during a walkthrough with Martha Sharp Joukowsky.

"It All Comes Down"

By the end of October and the beginning of November 2008, the first and second floors had been removed from the eastern side of Rhode Island Hall, and work had begun to demolish the wooden floors in the western end of the building. The work was dangerous, but the construction workers involved were comfortable and clearly familiar with the procedure of dismantling a building. The workers, while hanging from harnesses, effortlessly stripped the giant floor beams from each other while suspended in midair (Figures 5.15 and 5.16). Some of the wooden beams showed evidence of warping, probably from the fire of 1906 that severely affected the western end of the building. In fact, contractor Rich Emmetts later told me that he and some of the construction workers had not been notified of the fire that had damaged the building until they realized that some of the beams on which they were working were so scorched that they were merely a few inches thick (Emmetts 2009).

While removing a wooden floor beam, one of the construction workers expressed his excitement (and relief) that Rhode Island Hall was different from other historic preservation projects in which he had participated in that the entire interior of the building was being gutted – in his words, “It all comes down!” Though the massive wooden beams were indeed all being removed, many of them were donated to a local timber merchant to be reused. Some of the beams will also find a place in the new Joukowsky Institute as historic wooden benches. As the floors were removed, steel support beams were installed from corner to corner in both the east and west sections of the building, in order to prevent the entire building from coming down.

As a result of the removal of the first floor and the basement floor in the eastern side of Rhode Island Hall, a section of ground had been suggested for the burial of a time capsule, fitting for a building that would later house the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, though the suggestion of a time capsule came from the construction team rather than the department. Planning for the time capsule involved brainstorms and donations of objects relating to four different categories: A Day in the Life of the Joukowsky Institute, Life on Campus, The Year 2008, and The State of Archaeology. Items placed in the time capsule included newspaper clippings, posters, wine bottles, and even the former post office box for the Joukowsky Institute that had been removed from Faunce House after the mail room was relocated to the newly renovated J. Walter Wilson building. Institute Manager Sarah Sharpe commented that the time capsule was registered online, so that some possibility of the time capsule being rediscovered and unveiled exists.

The time capsule was buried with pomp and circumstance on November 19th, 2008 in the eastern section of the building. A procession accompanied the ceremonies, including the marching of standard-bearers and a drummer. Upon reaching the site of Rhode Island Hall, the attendant dignitaries declaimed speeches and provided offerings following the various customs of the ancient cultures studied at Brown University. Ömür Harmansah gave alms to the sun god Shamas in Akkadian syntax, Cecelia Feldman and Michelle Berenfield provided oblations to the time capsule as the Ancient Greeks would have, Stephen Houston and Thomas Garrison represented the Maya, and Roderick Campbell performed a mock Chinese human sacrifice on Thomas Leppard with the help of Bradley Sekedat. After the time capsule was carried inside the building and placed in its pit, Susan Alcock accompanied Artemis and Martha Joukowsky while they began burying the capsule. Perhaps in a century or so another student will write his thesis about a curious oblong, metallic object uncovered beneath Rhode Island Hall during the renovations of 2109.

At the very end of the month of November, during the removal of the last sections of the basement floor, one of the most intriguing surprises of the 2008 renovation occurred. In the northwest corner of the building, a 24-foot deep well was found to have been directly underneath one of the basement classrooms for the past decade entirely unnoticed until the current renovation (Figures 5.17 and 5.18). Oddly, the well was not recorded on any of the plans stored in the office of Facilities Management, and no previous knowledge of the feature was thought to exist. Discovery of the well though an incredible archaeological find, ironically, raised some concern surrounding the restoration of a building for the housing of the archaeology department. The well could have slowed progress on the restoration, as preservation may have trumped construction. Fortunately, a balance was found, and archaeologist Kaitlin Deslatte performed a swift salvage archaeology operation in order to determine the chronology of the well relative to the building.

The well exploration occurred primarily on December 9th, and the information gained through even a brief excavation has proven enlightening about not only the history of Providence before the construction of Brown University but also the college’s recent past. Deslatte determined that the well was older than Rhode Island Hall:

The well feature was lower in depth relative to the bottom of the solid brick foundation wall. As the rubble stones continued downward from the brick wall, the well stones emerged as being under and apart from that rubble construction for the foundation wall. (Deslatte 2008: 11) (Figure 5.21)

Deslatte also uncovered a section of terracotta drainage pipe that postdated the well (Figure 5.19). Construction workers noted that similar tracks of this drainage system ran throughout the building (Deslatte 2008: 6).

Though the well predated the construction of Rhode Island Hall, the well may have still been used in the earliest decades of the building’s use. Students living in Hope College during the nineteenth century carried water in pitchers from that building’s well, which is still located next to Faunce House today (Mitchell 1993: 289) (Figure 5.22). In an 1878 report, Professor Jenks notes that Pawtuxet water had been introduced to Rhode Island Hall’s laboratory, but prior to that year, the well in Rhode Island Hall may have remained in use (Mitchell 1993: 466). In fact, according to Professor Jim Head, professor of geology Alonzo Quinn (Figure 5.23) was fascinated by the well and measured its water level every day (Nuding 2009). Thus, the well was likely accessible throughout much of Rhode Island Hall’s history, though its memory was never recorded until now.

In December, Professor Christopher Witmore also assisted with a novel form of documenting the restoration of Rhode Island Hall. Some of the construction workers had mentioned that in previous projects in which they had been involved, at M.I.T., for example, 360-degree images had been produced to document the restoration. December seemed to be the perfect month of the restoration to create such images, as the entire building was bare from the wooden attic beams to the dirt floor to the stone walls. Documenting this state of Rhode Island Hall had never been done before in such a manner, and the opportunity to do so would soon be unavailable as the building would be “built up” throughout the coming months. Thus, Witmore demonstrated how the Institute’s Gigapan technology allows for panoramic and 360-degree photography of any space. We set up two angles – one from the Main Green door facing west into the building (Figure 5.24) and another one from the Quiet Green (front) door facing east. These images reveal much more detail than do individual photographs, as any area of either Gigapan image can be selected and manually enlarged. In addition, the panoramic nature of the Gigapan images shows the interior of the building in whole, as no photograph or even video can provide. Unfortunately, the Gigapan failed to photograph the entire western end of the building due to the level of darkness there, so this image is of less quality than that of the eastern addition of Rhode Island Hall.

Shortly after the Gigapan images were produced, the interior gutting of Rhode Island Hall was complete, and the interior of the building began to be constructed. The first obvious feature to be installed inside the building was the elevator shaft in the eastern end of the building. By the time the Gigapan images were complete on December 9th, the elevator shaft was already close to 90% complete. During Brown University’s winter recess, concrete was poured in the basement to form the floor, and steel beams were installed for the later support of the first floor (Figure 5.25). In addition, sections of wall that had been previously removed for the installation of pipes and other mechanical appliances were in-filled with cinder blocks for wall support (Figure 5.28). Photographs of these wall sections are intriguing in that they reveal not only the newly installed cinder blocks and the original slate walls but also previous in-fills using other materials. Based on the materials used for the in-fill, different layers, stratigraphies, if you will, can be analyzed to determine the relative date of each in-fill. For example, some in-fills were made not with concrete, but with traditional redware bricks (Figure 5.26), and even earlier in-fills sometimes were replaced with wood (Figure 5.27), especially in the lintels of some of the windows and doors. The wooden lintels probably date to the earliest years of the building, while the bricks could date to any period, from the 19th century to the 1980s.

An especially interesting modern in-fill lies in the section of wall between the eastern and western ends of the building. Here, a large pipe was installed, necessitating the removal of a large section of wall where the first floor would later be installed (Figure 5.29). Doing so left essentially an empty space between the lower and upper walls. The only support for the upper wall was the large pipe, though a few two-by-fours were placed in the space for safety. Project Superintendent William Mueller stated that even he, who has been in the construction profession for years was impressed by the physics of this support system (Mueller 2009). Of course, as impressive as the construction was, no need for such an empty space remained after the installation of the pipe, thus, the area was in-filled with cinder blocks just in time for decking to be installed over the beams to form the foundation for the first floor (Figure 5.30).

The pipe continued to serve unintended purposes even after its use as support was no longer needed. In the documented history of Rhode Island Hall, the only recorded uses of the building include its importance as containing classroom space, laboratories, and exhibits. In other words, the only recorded histories of the building involve the students and professors of Brown University. An entire history of the people who built and who have renovated Rhode Island Hall during the past century remains unwritten, and almost undetectable. The only records of restoration are the measurements recorded on the walls of the building, which are only visible when the entire interior has been gutted. Fortunately, however, during the 2008 and 2009 restoration, I was able to witness some of the interactions that took place between the construction workers and the building.

For example, after the large pipe was installed in the section of wall between the original western building and the 1874 addition, some of the construction workers created another use for the pipe that certainly will not occur when students and professors occupy the building in the fall of 2009. On January 27th, I photographed the pipe after a mason had been brought in to install concrete bricks in the space surrounding the pipe (Figure 5.31). While on his break, the mason left his sweater on the pipe, rather than on the dirty floor (Figure 5.32). Similarly, other workers took advantage of the cables surrounding the hole in the floor where Stair C would later be installed. These cables were originally intended to keep workers safe by preventing them from inadvertently stepping through the hole in the floor. However, many of the workers hung their sweaters off the cables, in a similar manner as the mason. Ironically, another interaction with the building seemed to use the same large pipe for a completely opposite purpose. On February 2nd, I observed that someone had left a disposable paper cup inside the pipe in a way that clearly revealed its use as a sort of temporary trash can. These interactions with Rhode Island Hall suggest a different use of the building by modern construction workers, and perhaps similar uses of the space also took place in the past when Rhode Island Hall was constructed and renovated.

In February of 2009, the second floor beams and decking were also installed, and concrete was poured to create the first floor. The first wall frames were also placed in the basement and different sections of the basement began to be compartmentalized into rooms (Figures 5.33 and 5.34). The completion of the first floor also allowed for the lower section of the wall beneath the aforementioned pipe to be demolished on February 12th to create more space for Stair C. Construction of the second floor and mezzanine also began by the middle of the month. Access to the upper floors of the building at this time was only possible by ladder, as the stairways were yet to be built, and the exterior fire escape was closed off as the second floor was still being stabilized. After the installation of sheetrock in the walls of the basement, the first floor wall frames began to be constructed, and the new interior of Rhode Island Hall began to take shape.

As the project progressed into March, the new interior of Rhode Island Hall continued to take form, as some of the defining features of the plans were installed in the building. Most obvious, the two staircases were placed (Figure 5.35), allowing more convenient movement within the building, rather than outside the building via the fire escape or by ladder. In addition, the area intended to expose the original stone construction of the walls was framed on the second floor (Figure 5.36).

In April, as the interior of Rhode Island Hall continued to coalesce, focus shifted more to the exterior of the building. Though discussions of the stucco exterior of the building began as early as the spring of 2008, disagreement still surrounded how to solve the challenges posed by prior stucco renovations and mock-ups. The most recent coating of stucco dates to 1995, and photographs taken by University Curator Robert P. Emlen reveal that the exterior of the building at this time had become severely cracked and damaged (Figure 5.39). In 2008, the stucco had similarly failed, and, thus, a dialogue began to discuss a more permanent solution to replace the damaged stucco. Stucco naturally weathers and cracks over time if not replaced or maintained, but the architects of the Rhode Island Hall renovation hoped to establish a stucco coating that would not have to be entirely replaced again thirteen years later. The color of the stucco was also an issue, as finding a match with an historic color of the building is often difficult. At first, a marble color (similar to that of the John Hay Library) was suggested, though the color of the original Rhode Island Hall stucco probably more closely matched that of Manning Hall. Later, other mock-ups were of soapstone and limestone colors, though neither color seemed appropriate. The depth of the stucco also caused some debate, as many of the cracks in the stucco were less than one sixteenth of an inch. The stucco, then, could either be replaced, or the cracks could be filled and essentially hidden with an aggregate. As of the end of April, different color mock-ups were still being tested, including pewter and amaretto (Figure 5.38).

One of the last beams to be installed in the building was brought inside through the window by the exterior fire escape. This beam differed from the rest in a number of ways, most obviously that it was painted white, but also in that it would serve as its own time capsule, recording the signatures of the architects and project managers of Shawmut and Facilities Management (Figure 5.37). I was also given the honor to sign my own name on the beam, after which contractor Rich Emmetts declared “Now you’re a part of history” (Emmetts 2009). Though I was proud to have my name forever associated with Rhode Island Hall, at the same time, I could not help but think of all the people connected to the restoration of the building, including Emmetts, who did not sign the beam. Though their names and stories are not formally recorded on the building, they have played the most crucial role in the history of Rhode Island Hall, and their actions have made the renovation of the building as the future home of the Joukowsky Institute possible.

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