A4 Architecture Blog
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Public Spaces of Newport
When most people think about the idea of “Public Spaces” in Newport, they will often immediately think of parks and public squares. While parks like Touro Park, Queen Anne Square, and Washington Square serve an important role as visual punctuation to the buildings,...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: A Mysterious Monument – The Newport Tower
Newport is home to an extraordinary number of architectural treasures. For the most part the architects, owners and dates of construction for these buildings are well documented. In one case, however, the dates and history of the structure are very much in contention...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Newport Spring
In 1639, looking for a new place to form a new community, a small group of colonial settlers found what they were looking for: a deep water harbor with a freshwater spring nearby. The colonial charter readers: “It is agreed and ordered that the Plantation began at...
Architecture Spotlight: Rhode Island Lighthouses
A building type particular and special to the coastal areas, both around the United States and around the world, is the lighthouse. Built to aid in marine navigation and warn boats away from hazardous rock outcroppings, lighthouses have existed from the early days of...
A4 Spotlight: Newport World Heritage Site Status
This column has often argued that Newport is blessed with a broad and deep cultural and architectural heritage. From the city’s rich concentration of colonial houses along Spring Street and in the Point District, to the extraordinary collection of Greek revival, Queen...
Historical Spotlight: A New Addition to the National Register
This column has often lovingly called Newport the “Metropolitan Museum of Architecture” for the breadth and depth of its collection of important buildings from the colonial times through the early part of the nineteenth century. This audacious claim is based upon the...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: The JNA Griswold House
Newport is the repository of many treasures of American architectural history, including the JNA Griswold House. It is noted for the many surviving colonial-era buildings but the true building boom began around 1850 as Newport became a summer escape for southern...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: The Newport Casino
One of the most widely recognizable buildings in Newport is the Newport Casino. This complex of buildings located on Bellevue Avenue was commissioned in 1879 by James Gordon Bennett, who owned an estate across the street on the site where the Bellevue Garden complex...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Washington Square – Birthplace of Newport
Newport has been many things over its lifetime: a Gilded Age resort, a post World War II Navy town, and today, an important destination for historic tourism. But at one time Newport was an early colonial settlement that was made prosperous by its excellent harbor and...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: Emmanuel Church, Newport, RI
With the end of Epiphany this past week, the Christian church has entered into Lent, a period of 40 days of reflection and self-denial. With the cold winter we have had here in Rhode Island and the dramatic climate events occurring around the world with increasing and...
Newport Architecture Spotlight: 375 Years of Great Architecture in Newport
As Portsmouth ends the celebration of its founding 375 years ago, Newport’s celebration of the same birthday is just beginning. There are very few communities in America that have been around longer than Newport and none that are better preserved from an architectural...
A4 Guide: A Brief History of Insulation
As the leaves turn brilliant colors and the evening temperatures begin to fall, it is time to think about the value and many advantages of good insulation. Insulation is meant to keep heat out in the summer and in during the winter and is measured in “R-value” (with...
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A4 Spotlight: Multi-dimensional Architecture
Architecture is not just a three-dimensional art form like sculpture but actually multi-dimensional. If you think of the sound quality of a church, the tactical quality of touching a cool marble surface in a building, or the smell of freshly cut cedar shingles on a...
Newport Spotlight: A Newport Summer
Ⓒ Nick Mele Newport has long been considered a summer resort destination since before the time of the American Revolution. It's easy accessibility to the sea and lovely climate made it an ideal place for the well-to-do to escape the heat of summer in times before the...
Newport Spotlight: Circle of Scholars
Samuel Tilton House (McKim, Mead and White, 1881) Each semester I am invited to teach a class in the "Circle of Scholars" continuing education program at Salve Regina University, located here in Newport Rhode Island. This is a program that Salve created to allow...
Newport Spotlight: Samuel Tilton House
In the 1870’s the United States was undergoing a massive change. The country was expanding westward following the completion of the Civil War and the economy was booming as a result. This in turn lead to the creation of massive industrial fortunes. In urban centers...
A4 Spotlight: Best of Newport
Each year since 1997 the readers of the Newport Life Magazine (and now the Newport Daily News, it’s sister publication under the same ownership), have been invited to vote on their favorite restaurants, stores, and professional service providers in Newport County. A4...
A4 Spotlight: US Gill Flagship Prototype
When A4 Architecture began the design process for the first flagship store for Gill Marine North America, our challenge was to try to capture both the innovation of the company’s technologic approach to apparel but also the longstanding tradition of yachting which...
A4 Spotlight: RWU School of Architecture
Rhode Island is perhaps most noted for being geographically the smallest state in the union. It is 1214 square miles (sm) in size with 1055 sm of land and 169 sm of water. The state has over 400 miles of coastline and thereby earns its nickname “The Ocean State” for...
A4 Spotlight: Entrained Energy
As each year passes, it becomes clearer and clearer that humanity is facing a serious climate crisis. Temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic have been measured 70 degrees above normal for this time of year. The problem often seems so large and intractable that it...
A4 Architecture Spotlight: Carriage Houses
In Newport Rhode Island we do not only have the great Gilded Age houses. We also have a wide variety of accessory buildings that were a part of these estates including Gatehouses, Gardener Cottages, and Carriage Houses. As it has been noted in previous articles, many...
A4 Perspective: Change is the Constant
Change happens, whether you want it to or not. That is perhaps one of the principal laws of the universe and it is certainly true in the world of architecture. The partial collapse and subsequent emergency demolition of 41-45 Franklin Street, up the hill from the...
A4 Guide: Newport Movie Settings
Generally, if given a choice, most movie directors would prefer to shoot movies or TV shows on a set because that way they can control every aspect of the design and not be constrained in their shooting by the realities of life. But in some situations, the cost to...
A4 Guide: Solar Tech
At the UN Climate Summit (COP26) occurring now in Glasgow, Scotland, there has been a clear call from all of the leading economies of the world that the catastrophic effects of climate change are beginning to occur now and to a greater severity than even the most...