Glass forest adorns 'new front door' to Rhode Island School of Design

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In the heart of this historic city, where stately brick homes line tree-canopied avenues and the soft gurgle of rivers fills the air, a forest stands. It is made of glass, and its delicate, curved shapes are filled with neon, creating an ethereal, almost eerie scene.

The glass forest is part of “Chihuly at RISD,” the inaugural exhibition at the new Chace Center at the Rhode Island School of Design. The center opened in September.

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AP Photo/Stew Milne

Dale Chihuly’s ‘Glass Forest’ is part of the ‘Chihuly at Rhode Island School of Design’ exhibit. Chihuly is an alumnus of the school.

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The Chihuly installation will fill the largest gallery, a plum-colored, S-shaped, 4,000-square-foot space on the third floor with striking views of downtown Providence through floor-to-ceiling windows. In addition, nearly 200 of Dale Chihuly’s signature charcoal process drawings spread across a 50-foot-long wall will offer a peek into the mind of the artist.

The Chace Center, which the school calls “a new front door to RISD,” is a bold and stunningly executed addition to the college’s Museum of Art. The challenge for José Rafael Moneo, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect and Harvard faculty member, was to design a modern structure on a site bordered on three sides by historical buildings. The resulting 43,000-square-foot structure, clad in glass and brick, not only welcomes visitors to the college, but also opens invitingly onto downtown Providence.

The Chace Center not only doubles the exhibition space at the RISD Museum, it also creates a crossroads where academic, museum and public activities come together. A new auditorium on the first floor, done in spare, light wood, will be used for talks by artists and curators, poetry readings, film screenings, and music and dance performances. RISD/Works, the school’s shop/gallery/showroom with all wares designed or created by RISD alumni or faculty, has relocated from the Merchant’s Bank Building on the other side of Market Square to the Chace Center lobby and added a small cafe.

The second floor houses student galleries, which will give the public more chances to see work created by the college’s up-and-coming artists and designers.

On the third floor a glass bridge links the Chace Center to the museum complex, offering a light-washed view of downtown Providence on the way.

One of the world’s preeminent glass artists, Chihuly earned a master’s degree in fine arts at RISD in 1968 from the ceramics department and helped build a glass department there.

“I spent such a long time at RISD, including a lot of time in the museum, and I still know a lot of people in Providence,” Chihuly said. “All that made me want to return and do something there.”

After graduating from RISD and spending time in Venice on a Fulbright Fellowship at the Venini glass factory in Murano, Chihuly stayed on in Providence, where the studio glass movement was beginning to take hold through the program he had helped establish at the school. In 1971, he co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School outside Seattle and continued to teach at RISD sporadically until the late 1980s.

Chihuly has created many well-known series of tabletop-size works that are technically brilliant, richly colored, and voluptuously shaped and grouped, among them the Cylinders, Baskets, Macchia, Seaforms, Persians and Venetians. But he is also celebrated for large-scale architectural installations, including “Chihuly Over Venice,” “Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem,” and “Chihuly at the V&A,” at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. His work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide and has been exhibited at countless national and international venues. His best-known public installation in New England may be the explosive, curlicued sculpture in the lobby of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. And visitors to the Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas are dazzled by his richly hued glass flower ceiling.

IF YOU GO…

“Chihuly at RISD” through Jan. 4. 2009

Chace Center, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, 224 Benefit St., 401-454-6500, risdmuseum.org

Where to stay

Providence Biltmore, 11 Dorrance St., 800-294-7709, providencebiltmore.com

Providence’s oldest hotel, a 10-minute walk from the Chace Center, $159-$599.

Renaissance Providence

5 Avenue of the Arts, 401-919-5000, 800-468-3571

renaissanceprovidence.com

Decor celebrates the arts. Less than a mile from the Chace Center, $189-$309.

Where to eat

Rue De L’espoir, 99 Hope St., 401-751-8890