Jonathan F. Bell, ARCHITECT

Providence, RI USA

401.954.2535

Jonathan Bell is an architect specializing in small, complex projects, adaptive reuse, interior architecture, and residential design. Jonathan has over 16 years of experience, and addresses the specifics of each project with a clear, straightforward, and creative approach. His work has won numerous awards, and has been published and exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally.

THE LATEST

January 2024: Happy New Year! On January 7, Jonathan presented a portion of his Richard Morris Hunt Prize Fellowship research as part of the Valley Talks series at the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The talk is titled “Making the French Connection: Industrial Architectural Heritages of Woonsocket, Roubaix, and Tourcoing.” The recording is below.

July 2023: The renovations to the Old Brick School House for the Providence Preservation Society were recently reviewed by architecture critic William Morgan in GoLocal Providence.

May 2023: Jonathan recently completed his travels as partial fulfillment of his Richard Morris Hunt Prize Fellowship in France. Below are a few images from his travels (via Instagram, @jonathanfbell).

View fullsize A few more from the Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection contemporary art museum. Tadao Ando intervention; fake pigeons roosting under the dome; context. #boursedecommerce #rmhprize #adaptivereuse #castironarchitecture #concretearchitecture
View fullsize Just clouds.
View fullsize Peak Parisian intersection. 1st Arrondissement, near the Palais Royale and the Bibliotheque Nationale
View fullsize Pretty nice details, eh? La Samaritaine, newly renovated for LVMH. #lasamaritaine #artnouveau #rmhprize #castironarchitecture
View fullsize …And continuing my reflected ceiling images in Paris: it’s (1) the newly renovated la Samaritaine department store (1907); and (2) the newly renovated Bourse de Commerce dome (dome from 1889; building is older). Both reopened in 2021. #r
View fullsize Medieval, meet Modern. Basilique Cathédrale de Saint Denis, background. Foreground: Oscar Niemeyer’s (former) newspaper HQ building. The modern « grand ensemble » (of which the newspaper building was part) was desig
View fullsize The Halle Pajol is a 2014 transformation of a giant SNCF train warehouse in Paris' 18th arrondissement (adjacent to the Gare de l'Est tracks, natch). There is a covered open-air park with rain fed from the sawtooth roof, and a new solar-powered mixed
View fullsize In Paris' 19th Arrondissement, the Cent Quatre-Paris (104) was the city's undertakers' facility, from which hearses and caskets would be dispatched to all of Paris. Now, it's a creative performance and arts hub. When I visited, there was an organic f
View fullsize Former supplier of flour to pâtisseries and boulangeries, the Grand Moulins de Pantin are just outside of Paris, along the Canal de l'Ourcq. #adaptivereuse #grandsmoulins #rmhprize #industrialarchitecture
View fullsize Well within the cemetry gates, my favorite tomb of the day: Oscar Wilde’s. The glass is up so people don’t kiss (and erode) the stone. #perelachaise #oscarwilde #egyptomania
View fullsize Père Lachaise cemetery was an original suburb for dead people. Overcrowding of central Paris’ cemeteries led to greener pastures. It was a new city for the dead, in 1804. #perelachaise
View fullsize Here lie two Georges: a pioneer of cinema, Georges Méliès… and the man who remade Paris in the 19th c., Georges Eugène Haussmann. #perelachaise #melies #haussmann
View fullsize Montessori school corridor on top floors of Unité d'Habitation, Firminy (not Marseilles), designed by Le Corbusier. Completed posthumously by Corbu's colleague André Wogenscky, this was the last of five Unités to be built, though
View fullsize Has anyone seen this lost monster? Eats pigeons and small children. Don't feed her! La Croix-Rousse, Lyon, France. #croixrousse #croixroussestreetart #legrrrandnono @legrrrandnono
View fullsize Interior/exterior reflections, Lyon Opera House, France. #lyonopera #lyon #jeannouvel #adaptivereuse
View fullsize ...And, the stairwell at Château de Fléchères, Fareins (Beaujolais), France. #rmhprize
View fullsize ...And another, a medieval courtyard in the middle of "la longue traboule" passageway in Vieux Lyon, France. #rmhprize #vieuxlyon #trabouleslyonnaises
View fullsize ...To continue my series of reflected ceiling images, here is the interior of Le Corbusier's Church of Saint-Pierre, in Firminy, France. #rmhprize #lecorbusier

 

"Sophistication is not necessarily the product of highly developed machinery, nor intensive capital investment. It is more a way of using available equipment and resources with cunning and intelligence." —Reyner Banham, from The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment