Classical High School


Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is Certare, Petere, Reperire, Neque Cedere, a Latin translation of the famous phrase taken from Tennyson's poem "Ulysses", "To Strive, to Seek, to Find, and Not to Yield". Classical High School stands roughly at the intersection of the Federal Hill, West End, and Upper South Providence neighborhoods.

Architecture

Classical High School's current building was finished in 1970 and is one of few buildings in the area created in the Brutalist architectural style. The original school buildings had become outdated by the 1950s and after several fires and years of study, the city launched a competition for a new education complex in 1963. The winning design was by noted local architects Harkness & Geddes in collaboration with Walter Gropius, who founded The Architects Collaborative , the famous Boston architectural firm.
William McKenzie Woodward, a well-known architectural historian and staff member of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, does not agree aesthetically with the building, going so far as to write in his Guide to Providence Architecture, "It's no wonder Modernism has gotten such a bad reputation in Rhode Island because it smells very bad there." In 1986 McKenzie had however admitted in his survey for the Preservation Commission that "The new complex, the first of its kind in Providence built to serve a stable rather than expanding population, was well received as an ample and functional facility." Quoting John Ware Lincoln, then chairman of the Division of Design at Rhode Island School of Design as having noted: "The new Classical buildings are fine architecture, by the old standards, but they are also exemplary of the new concept of the architect as an environmental planner, working with social and civic sciences, demography, transportation engineering, building technologies, and, in this case, education philosophy."
The previous building, designed by Martin & Hall, was a yellow brick building with a peaked roof. It was considerably smaller and was bounded by Pond Street, which was consumed in the creation of the new campus. When the old building was razed the yellow bricks were sold to students and alumni.

Alumni