Downtown Ramps
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We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.—Winston Churchill, 1924
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Flow, continual flow, continual change, continual transformation....—Rina Swentzel, Pueblo architectural historian
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About this Exhibit
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| NOTE: Each small image is a link to larger version. |
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| This exhibit takes a look at some of the wheel chair ramps in downtown Montpelier. It is not an essay on architecture or history or even architectural history. |
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| While working on an earlier project exploring the brickwork of our downtown’s buildings, I was struck by the ways in which wheel chair ramps were (or were not!) integrated into the design of the buildings. The addition of such ramps to commercial, government and public structures has been an ongoing activity for some decades and a matter for much gnashing of teeth, lobbying of regulation writing bureaus, and, ultimately, considerable progress. |
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| Ramps: building owners fight them or support them, architects draw them, contractors put them in—one Vermont firm even advertised its expertise in this area for years on public radio. Advocates demand them. Committees recommend specifications for them. Citizens use them, cope with them, struggle up and down them. In some cases, kids even ride them. |
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| But little attention seems to have been paid to the way they look, to how–like any other architectural feature–they articulate our experience of living in or with a building. Perhaps the best known treatise on the fate and evolution of buildings as we live with and modify them has little or nothing to say on the subject. |
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| Here, using photography, I have tried to begin seeing how the ramps we pass every day fit into our visual experience. I hope that some of these images will lead to questions and thoughtful consideration of the need for ramps and how we can relate to them. |
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| For further information about this exhibit or specific images, call 802 223-2417 or email wsteinhu@together.net. |
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| Albums of images and text from the exhibit will be donated to the Kellogg-Hubbard Library and the Vermont Center for Independent Living. |
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| This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Montpelier Community Arts Fund. Assistance and advice from the Vermont Center for Independent Living, Minuteman Press, the Drawing Board, Ray Brown, Molly Hoerres, Anne van Avery, and Susan Steinhurst is gratefully acknowledged. |
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| All text and images © William Steinhurst 2001. |
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Questions
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| This project, like others I have done recently, has turned into an exploration of our city, it's buildings and how we see and occupy them. Each has raised more questions for me than it has answered--always a pleasant experience. Here a few questions about wheel chair ramps. |
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| Why is there so little mention in even recent books on urban architecture of the challenges faced by designers and builders of ramps? |
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| What architectural factors are considered in ramp design beyond the legal minimum requirements? |
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| What is the impact of placing ramps so they lead to the main entrance of a building? the rear or side entrance? What do ramp users see and experience when they enter a building via a ramp? |
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| Who financed, designed, commissioned and owned these ramps? What plans did they ask for? What options did architects and contractors offer building owners? |
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| How durable are these ramps? How will they look as they age? |
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| Who uses these ramps? Just wheel chair users? Others with mobility needs? Delivery workers? If no one other than those persons use these ramps, why not? What effects would it have if more people used ramps and the entrances they lead to? |
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| How does the existence of these ramps affect non-users? the public at large? passers-by? workers, customers and residents using the buildings? |
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| Is it true that ramps designed as an integrated part of the design of a new building are more attractive or better support the use of a building than add-on ramps? Or, with care, can add-on ramps provide similar value? If so, how can that kind of care be encouraged? |
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| How can future development in downtown complement and learn from these ramp projects? |
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| Exhibit Image List • William Steinhurst Home |
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