Newport, Rhode Island
"The Meeting Room," the new park installation in Queen Ann Square, was commissioned by the Newport Restoration Foundation and designed by artists Maya Lin and Edwina Von Gal and Nick Benson of the John Stevens Shop. The title conveys the intent: to create spaces that invite a spirit of gathering and community and to provide a place of quiet imagination in the midst of the city. The park design centers on three stacked stone foundations, which represent actual locations and footprints of buildings which existed on the site during three different centuries: 1777, 1876 and 1907.