As suggested in the title of his last major performance during the theater festival Shakespeare in Paradise, "Pat Rahming Alias Pat Rahming", this poet, singer, performer and architect wears many hats.  But these days, the founder of the architecture and design firm Patrick Rahming and Associates has got a lot to say about the national development of what Bahamians consider the hub of our capital - downtown Nassau - and how we can improve its connection with the population of Bahamians living in the city.

"What is now our downtown ought to be preserved," he says.  "What it means is that we need to understand what downtown meant and if downtown is not going to be downtown, then we need to take a look at another downtown.  How are we going to expand and develop a downtown that is convenient to the people of a city?"

To Rahming, downtown Nassau has lost its meaning to Bahamian citizens.  The function of downtown, he points out, revolves around its markets.  When the markets moved, so did the people living in the area - leaving the downtown we know today, which exists and is developed further for visitors.  The entire downtown area as a whole, he says, needs to be examined and changed to better serve the Bahamian people once more.

Heading the firm whose design was chosen for the new straw market, Rahming has been on the receiving end of comments ranging from awe, to disappointment, to rage over the design of the multimillion dollar building.  Most criticisms insist the building is "not Bahamian enough" in its appearance, but Rahming believes this is the wrong way to approach appreciation of building design.

"People talk about Bahamian architecture, but there is no Bahamian architecture or U.S. architecture, or U.K. architecture.  Architecture is architecture," says Rahming.  "Being an architect, what I like to do is connect what's being said to what becomes manifested."
 
The nature of design
To Rahming, there are three levels of architecture architects must keep in mind when designing.  The first takes into account the building's appropriateness to its context of climate and site in its materials and structure - something which he took into account for the downtown straw market as it is raised above flood level, designed for maximum air circulation, and uses materials that respond to the climate.

The second level, he says, is how the building functions in its environment through its aesthetics, and Rahming thinks he has provided a piece of construction that fits into the existing fabric of Bay Street.  Though many may say the downtown straw market building is too elaborate for its surroundings, Rahming thinks it's suitable.  Many of these same critics are often surprised to find out his firm designed the clapboard village straw market at Baha Mar.
"It's a matter of appropriateness - one is on Bay Street and one is on an isolated site out west," explains Rahming.  "It means that when you go to a wedding, you wear a suit, and when you go to a party, you wear jeans and flip-flops.  Bay Street is our formal front living room and so it's appropriate for things that happen down there to be more the Rawson Square aesthetic than the clapboard house aesthetic."

The third level of architecture, he says, is the one that determines what we believe our "Bahamian" or "regional" architecture encompasses.  This level concerns itself with what Rahming calls "image-language" - where materials used go beyond their function and bring regional architecture to life.  It's those signifiers we can't entirely put our finger on but what we undoubtedly call our own when it comes to design.  Such a level, says Rahming, is one that needs to be explored and defined further to bring such uniqueness to the forefront and uplift the Bahamian people.

"If there is work to be done in architecture in The Bahamas, that's where it is - identifying, cataloguing and discussing at a public level not symbolism in architecture, but that we share this as a community," he says.  To Rahming, however, this grand downtown Nassau straw market is solely for visitors, and that is the driving force behind its design - the business of tourism.  That is the function of downtown Nassau nowadays, he points out, and we shouldn't waste our time thinking otherwise.

"The market is a piece of enriching the attraction for visitors primarily," he says.  "And I don't have a problem with that if it's part of a commitment to making what we're selling most potent so that we have more business at a national level."
"What I do have a problem with is the fact that we seem to be pretending that somehow that is going to make a contribution to local life when it's not."
 
A master plan
Instead, he insists we should spend our time thinking about a collective plan for the development and expansion of a downtown that is convenient to the people of the city.  What we need, he says, is a master plan of downtown Nassau that examines it as a whole.

"It's not that we're backwards, we just have not taken responsibility for our development," he says.  "We don't sit down and talk about what we want to accomplish; we just sit down and talk about how we get to this or that point - and now that we know how to complain, we do just that."  He has a master plan himself that, in a radical but altogether necessary overthrow, repurposes the main police headquarters on East Street, introduces a new highway flanked by strong retail and office commercial activity, places new buildings on open sites and moves the jitney terminal onto East Street at the post office to connect the people of the city to the area of downtown more easily.

He also insists on the inclusion of national monuments about independence and majority government to instill pride in Bahamians, as well as museums and sporting centers.  That way, what's presently downtown can become an entertainment zone as part of what is offered to visitors, while the new expansion can redefine the function of downtown to citizens.
"It would reintroduce the market function for the 90,000 people on the southern hill in their own neighborhood.  Their market function won't be stretched all over the island," points out Rahming.

"I'm absolutely convinced that the reason we have had trouble getting over-the-hill development is because when we talk about 'the city' we talk about downtown and then we talk about the outlying areas, but in between, where all the people live, have no definition. And because of that, we can't develop programs.  Even the people who live there see themselves in limbo."

This plan is already two years old and Rahming believes it's something he won't see happen in his lifetime.  Indeed it is a shame, for as long as we continue to hold conversations about how to redesign only parts of the existing area of downtown, the vision for it will remain narrow and an underwhelming, one-note experience.

"It's ridiculous for people to be having public conversation about one note in the symphony," he says.  "If we don't worry about the rest of the symphony, the experience of our downtown won't be very valuable.  I think we have the opportunity to create the most powerful experience of place certainly in the region; but on a daily basis, we're frittering it away."

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