The Newport Congregational Church, also known as the United Congregational Church, is a U.S. Department of the Interior National Landmark since 2012, listed in the National Register of Historic Places since1970 and designated part of the Newport National Landmark Historic District since 1968. Designed by Joseph C. Wells in the Romanesque Revival Style and completed in 1857, this work “is an expression of a mid-19th-century sentiment within American Congregationalism to embrace Romanesque architectural forms associated with early Christianity as a component of religious renewal”.1 Its significance, however, lies not with the structure but with the interior ornamentation of murals and stained glass, executed between 1880 and 1881 by American artist John La Farge. A contemporary and colleague of William and Richard Morris Hunt and Henry Hobson Richardson, La Farge’s work at the Newport Congregational Church follows upon his murals in Richardson’s Trinity Church. Working within the Congregational Church’s interpretation of the second commandment as a prohibition of graven, figurative imagery, La Farge’s designs, both for the murals as well as the stained glass windows, are geometric patterns derived from Byzantine, Moorish and Persian tiles. The work at Newport Congregational Church “represents the advent of the American mural movement, the zenith of La Farge’s creative professional life, and a benchmark in the history of American decorative arts.”2
This interior of the church also represents an important advance in the technology and craft of American stained glass production. In 1874 when La Farge received his first stained glass commission, the industry was obsolete. Dissatisfied with this lack of resources, La Farge experimented “with plating and, later, opalescence …. The use of opalescent glass, an imitation of porcelain traditionally used for inexpensive tableware, as manufactured in sheet form was unprecedented in stained glass production.”3 “While completing the twenty windows for the Newport Congregational Church commission, La Farge perfected and patented his technique for the manufacture of opalescent glass, the popularization of which in the last two decades of the 19th century brought about a revival of American stained glass and profoundly influenced the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany and other American glass artisans.” 4
Since the completion of La Farge’s work in the late 19th century, time has weathered many elements of the church. Some of the windows were replaced without regard to their original state, the walls were covered over in a bright shade of blue, the exterior envelope has deteriorated, the organ loft was enclosed. In 1996, the La Farge Restoration Foundation was established to oversee the restoration of the sanctuary, with fund raising efforts that continue today. In 2012, the Van Beuren Charitable Foundation funded the RISD Department of Interior Architecture proposal soft interventions to study adaptive reuse at the Newport Congregational Church.
Interventions to architectural heritage such as this require a different standard of care. As defined in Article 6 of the Venice Charter, “Wherever the traditional setting exists, it must be kept. No new construction, demolition or modification which would alter the relations of mass and colour must be allowed.” Nonetheless, historic monuments such as the Newport Congregational Church are in need of positive intervention to keep them vibrant and active in 21st century life. A primary objective of the RISD proposal was to explore the scope of design interventions within these limitations of protected historic monuments and to embrace such constraints through innovative means.
With the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties as guidelines for rehabilitating and reconstructing historic buildings, the studio focused, in particular, on the regulation that “New additions and adjacent or related new construction will be undertaken in such a manner that, if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.”5 The latter clause inspired the idea of “reversibility” in which architectural interventions could be “inserted” and removed, if needed, without leaving a trace on the original structure. With reversibility as a driving principle three professors and nine graduate students embarked upon a full-scale implementation of a “soft” intervention, one that brings new meaning and new use to the existing structure through non-invasive means.
Focusing on the John La Farge sanctuary, the students collaborated on a design intervention that transformed the church into an exhibition space. With textiles as a primary material, the intervention consisted of inserting a monumental interior ceiling into the nave, creating a new “room” within the church. Conceived of as an intuitive “guide” through a mapping of the interior of the church, the textile directs the visitor toward specific aspects of the La Farge heritage with sudden changes in elevation, plane and form. Designed as an inflatable surface to float above the pews, the ceiling consisted of a pattern derived and abstracted from the geometry of La Farge’s stained glass windows. Below this ceiling a series of exhibit boards and a monumental platform of steps were designed, constructed and “affixed” to the pews. The wooden steps, mounted above two pews, afforded the visitor an elevated overview of the interventions.
The textile ceiling was constructed of hundreds of yards of fire retardant ripstop, a woven nylon. In its completed state, it spanned the length of the church from altar to organ loft and from balcony to balcony. The double-layered fabric was hand sewn and secured to the church with sailing hardware such as cables, steel shackles, and turnbuckles. Inspired by the sailing industry of Newport, the use of this hardware permitted a mode of attachment that circumvented the existing structure. Continuous narrow casings sewn into the textile and secured with Velcro served as a means of attachment to the cables. With the exception of three screwed connections, the sailing hardware allowed the enormous textile structure to float in the air without any impact on the existing structure.
The installation was a challenge requiring first the placement of cable and after the textile across the church, at elevations of 40 feet and spans from 75 feet end to end and 50 feet across. The ceiling itself was painstakingly slipped onto the cables through the casings and slowly pulled across the nave. Once the fabric was hoisted in place and extended to the correct tension, it was inflated with the use two small blowers. The exhibit boards and monumental platform, both constructed of wood, were similarly “attached” to the pews in a non-invasive manner. Through careful and meticulous detailing, these items were clamped onto the pews without direct attachment, allowing them to float above the pews. With minimal contact these interventions demonstrated the concept of reversibility as architectural transformations achieved without invasive means.