Bricked Over Windows

The outdoor installation Bricked-Over Windows, by Brown | RISD Dual Degree student Naya Lee Chang, is a 2024 Dorner Prize winner. In the 1920s, the RISD Museum commissioned a new building to match the other houses on Benefit Street. The Radeke Building, designed in the Colonial Revival style, reflected the identity of a museum that privileged Western art and the domestic architectural preferences of Providence’s elite. One hundred years later, Bricked-Over Windows interrupts the facade of the Radeke Building with two archways inspired by brickwork from around the world. Over one window, a four-centered arch and glazed tiles gesture to West and Central Asian Islamic architecture. Over another window, a flaming pediment and allusion to a terrace nod to brick complexes in Bagan, Myanmar. 

This installation was made possible in part by a generous donation from Spaulding Brick Co.

The Dorner Prize is an annual juried competition that invites RISD student artists and designers to create new installations, performances, programs, or digital encounters that engage the public by using the RISD Museum’s object collections, public spaces, and digital platforms. The Dorner Prize, named for the distinguished early 20th-century RISD Museum director Alexander Dorner, is made possible by a generous anonymous gift.

2024 Jurors: Hillel O’Leary (RISD BFA 2011), assistant professor of industrial design, RISD; and Gabrielle Walker, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet Curatorial Assistant, RISD Museum