Current Events

Preliminary work has begun to renovate the grand banking hall at 15 Westminster Street as the new Fleet Library at RISD. In January 2005 a design review committee of students, faculty, staff and trustees approved the latest in an evolving series of schematic drawings of the space prepared by Office dA, the Boston-based firm handling the project (RISD BAR ’86, Architecture).

The library program calls for accommodating an easily accessible collection of 100,000 volumes, including bound periodicals, with room for collection growth to 200,000 volumes; a secure, climate-controlled space for Special Collections and Archives; a separate study room for the Artists’ Book Collection; new space for an Archive of Graphic Design and Illustration; continued development of visual collections (analog and digital); and an increase in exhibit cases.

Students and public visitors will find various seating options for at least 200, small group study rooms and classrooms, video viewing areas, easily accessible computer workstations and wireless connectivity, plus scanning, copying and printing capabilities. The visual arts library will also offer improved public service areas for circulation, reserves and reference.

Housed in the historic bank building just across the river from the RISD Auditorium, the new facility will be named the Fleet Library at RISD in recognition of FleetBoston Financial’s generosity in donating a portion of the building to the college. The bank’s 2002 gift of the first two floors of its 15 Westminster Street property offers nearly 50,000 square feet of usable space, which will make the new library more than three times the size of the old one on Benefit Street. With its 49-foot ceiling, the first-floor former banking hall (on the National Register of Historic Places) offers an impressive site for the main reading room.

Student housing will occupy the upper floors of the building starting in fall 2005. Rooms on nine floors allow space for about 500 students. Most merchants downtown are excited about this new injection of needy students, and we expect lower Westminster to go through a revival.

“The opportunity to revitalize one of downtown Providence’s most beautiful buildings and incorporate it into our campus is very exciting,” says RISD President Roger Mandle. “Our library’s distinctive collection deserves the type of preservation and presentation this new facility will provide.” Add to that the energy and vibrancy of 500 upperclass and graduate students living on the floors above and the Fleet Library at RISD will capture RISD at its best — open, accessible, vibrant and interactive.
“The cost of putting the library in there is about $200 per square foot; that’s a remarkable price,” Mandle said. “With architecture of that quality plus the furnishings, it would probably be $600 per square foot. You can’t build buildings like that anymore.”

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