Shivani Bhalla

Newport Congregational Church: Soft Interventions

INSTALLATION DESIGN | ADAPTIVE REUSE | TEXTILE

Newport Congregational Church (“NCC”) gathered in 1695 in Newport, RI.  In the mid 19th century, the current church structure at the corner of Spring and Pelham Streets was built. 

In 1880, NCC commissioned Newport resident artist John La Farge, who had just mastered the technique of creating opalescent glass, to decorate the sanctuary.  NCC required that La Farge include no Christian iconography.  Thus the polychrome painted walls and ceilings and the opalescent glass windows’ designs reflect the artist’s cosmopolitan inspiration from many, mostly Eastern, cultures and visual traditions.  All the windows are uniquely non-figurative—with no representations of Jesus or other figures from the Bible-- and therefore very different from La Farge’s other works.

The church structure has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is contained within the National Historic District in Downtown Newport.

The Van Beuren Charitable Foundation called upon the Interior Architecture department at RISD to propose an adaptive reuse studio. Divided in two parts, the studio was to look into reversible adaptive interventions for the church without harming the murals on the ceiling, the opalescent glass windows and the structure.

The first part of the studio was to create a group installation. Using architectural textile to create a sweeping canopy, the design was to pay homage to LaFarge's interior architecture and art for the church.

The second part of the studio was the individual intervention. Using a program for the church with minimum intervention to this preserved iconic piece of architecture, each student had propose a function that would be used as a public space as well as a church for service on Sundays owing to a devout congregation. The Project has been greatly published and appreciated. It was also displayed in New York and Washington DC. It also won the WAN award for soft intervention

Design Team :

RISD Master of Arts Interior Architecture & Adaptive reuse class of 2013