Of Course It’s Supposed To Look Like That! Do You Really Think I Would Forget To Remove All The Ugly Temporary Siding Before Opening? By The Architect of the Lindemann Performing Arts Center

Published Friday, May 12th, 2023
Filed under Opinion

Do you really think I’m stupid enough to leave up hundreds of corrugated iron sheets before opening to the general public? No way! I designed the building like this. What kind of architect would I be if I accidentally left the Lindemann covered with construction material and then got too embarrassed to say anything about it? Who would do that?

Sure, the sheeting was useful during construction, but I can promise you that it was always a part of the plan. Besides, these white panels look so much better than a glass or brick facade. Why would anyone want a building with windows when you can have a giant white cube?

Yeah, and now that I’m looking at the building finished, I really like how it doesn’t fit in with any of the other buildings on Brown’s campus. It makes a statement, and that statement is “Wow, it looks like that?”

In the end, I think it was actually a pretty brilliant decision by me to cover the Lindemann with those protective iron panels. It’s kind of modernist, or postmodernist? Minimalist? Cubist? Well, whatever it is, it was a choice and definitely not an accident.