The building from street level.
Since returning from Providence I’ve found the imposing bulk of the Industrial Trust Building increasingly occupying my thoughts. It doesn’t take much to get me fixating on a particular building, especially if it’s big and old and sufficiently distinctive in its styling. The Industrial Trust Building fulfils these criteria with the added bonus of being mentioned in HP Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark. Photos of the place as it is today are numerous, but you can also find some older views which show the building as it was before being crowded by more recent structures. There’s also a very detailed photo showing the lantern/beacon design which is covered in bas reliefs, and seems to sport an air-raid siren.
An ad from a page with a number of views from the building’s earliest days. I was hoping that favourite architectural renderer Hugh Ferriss might have produced a drawing but Ferriss tended to work on more grandiose projects for companies in New York and elsewhere.
An undated postcard.
Two prints from a screen print series by Ian Gilpin Cozzens.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugh Ferriss
I’ve always been struck by that building but never got around to learning more about it. Thanks for this.
Did you get one of those Ian Cozzens prints while in Providence? There are also postcards of the top half of his design as well.
If not, that could be remedied…Ian’s site (his work w/typography alone is superb)
>http://www.secretdoorprojects.org/
It’s a bit hard to tell from just pictures, but is the building actually as large as it looks? It reminds me somewhat of Senate House in London (perhaps because of the lantern at the top), and I wondered if it had the same sort of forced=perspective (or whatever it is) going on.
Yes, it’s a very tall building, taller than Senate House. The photo on this post http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2015/08/28/views-of-providence/ is from the 17th floor of the Biltmore Hotel, and the tower is still considerably taller.