Bricked-Over Windows, 2024
Brick, tile, mortar, paint, cement board, wood
RISD Museum, Radeke Building, 224 Benefit Street, Providence, RI
Installed: March–June 2024

In the 1920s, the RISD Museum commissioned a new building to match the other houses on Benefit Street. The Radeke Building, designed in the colonial revival style, reflected the identity of a museum that privileged Western art and the domestic architectural preferences of Providence’s elite. Nearly one hundred years later, Bricked-Over Windows interrupted the facade of the Radeke Building with two archways inspired by brickwork from around the world. Over one window, a four-centered arch and glazed tiles gestured to West and Central Asian Islamic architecture. Over another window, a flaming pediment and allusion to a terrace nodded to brick complexes in Bagan, Myanmar. 

This installation was a 2024 RISD Museum Dorner Prize winner. It was made possible in part by a generous donation from Spaulding Brick Co.

Images courtesy of the RISD Museum, Providence, RI.

Related Press:

• Simone Solondz, “Winning 2024 Dorner Prize Projects Reflect on RISD Museum’s History and Practices,” RISD News, June 3, 2024