Lincolns, Nissans, and Libraries

In Providence, buildings and automobiles both serve as reflections of the city’s aesthetic values. This is why we should pay more attention to the latter.

Loki Olin

The 5,000-pound cruiser sways through turns and glides over potholes as it navigates College Hill’s one-way streets and stop-go traffic. The car’s soft suspension, white-walled tires, and curtain-drawn windows are all symbols of a bygone automotive era. The car itself is the length of a double-cab pickup truck, but with seats for just four. It is not an efficient vehicle, nor is it a discrete one. Still, it parks innocuously, blending in with the Subarus, Hondas, and Toyotas that provide the antithesis to each of the Lincoln’s unique characteristics. Forty years ago, it was the standard. But in Providence, the once-typical styling of a gleaming saloon has turned into an oddity – replaced en masse by slammed hatchbacks, flame-throwing muscle cars, and a new generation of road-bound aesthetic ideals.


Photo by: Loki Olin

Though it now sticks out like a sore thumb in local parking spots, this Lincoln serves as a four-wheeled exemplification of Providence’s history. With its glimmering paint undermined by worn tires that hint at decades of use, this car embodies the aesthetics of a city aspiring to outgrow its industrial roots while preserving colonial notions of wealth and prosperity. Leatherbound seats and half-drawn curtains hint at an idealization of luxury, just as the city’s most notable historical figures have striven for inclusion in the ranks of the East Coast elite.

The Lincoln meanders around town, frequenting the white-chalk spots south of George street on Thayer. Although the saloon lacks a University-issued permit, it evades the authorities and never wears that shameful shade of orange bestowed upon the unlucky by Providence’s parking prosecutors. It is a smooth operator, effortlessly nomadic in its constant rotation between Thayer, Benevolent, George, and Power. When the Lincoln needs a longer-term spot, it nestles under one of the multi-story colonial houses that dominate the corners of College Hill. The Lincoln acts as an extension of all of these homes, clocking in the hours as a road-going companion to Providence’s army of beige Federal-style clones.

Between 1968 and 1971, around when our Lincoln’s town car predecessors rolled off the assembly line floor, Brown University constructed four buildings. They were ambitious projects – hulking structures clad in beige of brutalism that were intended to add strength and character to eastern Providence’s modest skyline. The project’s centerpiece was the towering Sciences Library, whose renowned ugliness now makes it widely considered the school’s most regrettable architectural endeavor. Today, the school is trying its hand at architecture once again. This time, though, it is trying differently. As it undertakes to build a new performing arts center, the school has eschewed the traditional aesthetics of the city and moved on from the brutalist fad that dominated its offerings in the preceding century. The new building is covered in a sheen of pseudo-industrial steel with a base punctuated by floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Online architectural renderings emphasize the building’s minimalist interior and gleaming spaceship-style exterior. In a vacuum, the new building may be attractive. But it is not built in a vacuum. It is in Providence. Thus, it is surrounded by houses, dorms, and University wings that were built on the very ideals that this new building seeks to reject. And these centuries-old brick-built staples ensure that the performing arts center will not evade the sore-thumb phenomenon that seems inherent to the construction of any new building on College Hill. Even as the beige of brutalism fades from the neighborhood’s architectural palette and is replaced by the silver of steel and the green of glass, dissension pervades the visual language of the city. 

As spectators assess the merits and drawbacks of each style, they are forced to choose between two evils: the boring and the insubordinate. And when every addition is judged not only by its own virtue but by its cohesion with its surroundings, hopes of having an immediate and profound positive impact are fantastical. Thus, change is discouraged. In evaluating the best path forward, it is clear that the stakes are high – fourteen floors high, in some cases – and the questions daunting. Must each brick slowly be replaced, gradually upgraded, so that cohesion can follow in the footsteps of progress? Or should the improbability of unanimous approval yield stagnance? Should each brick simply be left alone?

To better understand the evolving aesthetic and cultural ideals of the city, perhaps onlookers should turn their gaze to the street rather than the skyline. On the city’s potholed roads, individual stakeholders with individual desires give little thought to cohesion, and a more democratic medium of expression has taken hold. The breadth of aesthetic expression found on the asphalt is abundantly clear. Occasionally, our Lincoln ventures north and finds itself parked in stark juxtaposition with a local Nissan 370Z that exemplifies car culture in Providence. Named BRS Z34 by its owner Kai, this 2018 370Z Nismo is loud in every way. It is slammed low to the ground on coilovers and clad in rubber band-thin performance tires. Its stock downpipe has been decatted, demuffled, enlarged. But this Nissan is best known for its paint: every single body panel has been wrapped in eye-popping, neon-colored, anime-inspired artwork. Humming restlessly in the pale shadow of the Sciences Library, the Nissan rejects the notion that cars must serve as an extension of a city’s roots.

Although still outnumbered on paper, Kai and his visually outspoken automotive companions are expanding in rank. Indeed, between its leather-vested hog riders and nighttime drag racers, Providence is host to a lively cohort of vehicular fanatics. Some make their presence known through straight-piped exhausts or bass-boosted sound systems. Others fit 26-inch chrome wheels on their Mustangs, opting to show off with aesthetics rather than volume. In either case, these cars and bikes are not just to be driven - they are to be seen, and they are to be heard.

This phenomenon should not be dismissed as a fad or subculture or some sort of cultish communal degeneration. If buildings are considered integral aspects of a city’s identity, should the same not hold true for cars? While the Sciences Library may embody a certain architectural movement, it is less an expression of identity than it is an expression of agenda. An examination of the project’s stakeholders reveals that school administrators, University alumni, and government officials dictated the building’s appearance. Although Providence and its inhabitants now live in its shadow, they played no role in the building’s construction.


Photo by: Loki Olin

Kai is the sole owner, designer, driver, and photographer of his anime-clad Nissan. In direct contrast to the building which occasionally looms over his project car, Kai required no formal permission when he stripped his Nissan of its white paint and covered it in art. He required no formal permission when he gutted its mechanical innards and made each component an intentional creative decision. Through his modification, the Nissan became an expression of identity unencumbered by zoning boards or alumni committees. By extension, each car that traverses Providence’s intersections serves as an expression of its owner’s identity – especially those that have been carefully modified and maintained to reflect an intentional artistic or visual goal. In many cases, Providence’s cars have evolved to serve as a more democratic representation of the city’s changing aesthetic ideals. The Sciences Library will never rid itself of that beige; but tomorrow, the silver rims on Kai’s Nissan just might be orange.