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Architect William Warner doesn’t act like the Robert Moses of de-paving. With a wry wit, a self-effacing manner, and a devotion to urban detail, the architect of Providence’s Waterplace Park doesn’t appear to be a man who could part the asphalt. Nonetheless, his transformation of a half-mile swath of hardtop into a canal and walkway, has created not only what some call the “Venice of New England” but has shaped a model for asphalt removal and urban renewal in the nation.

Last month, a generation after plans to re-engineer Providence began, Waterplace’s success in stitching together this severed city prompted the launching of the Old Harbor Plan, Providence’s final de-paving venture. The first phase of the $270-million, 10-year project, will complete waterway’s final push to the sea, moving interstate-195 and freeing some 45 acres of downtown area and shore land for greater access, recreation and renewal.

More than a triumph of architecture over asphalt in one New England city, Waterplace’s string of lagoons embodies a national impulse to remove the concrete flatlands left by half a century of hardtopping. Today, as 1950’s roads end their lifespan, Americans are refurbishing their waterfronts. Rivers once seen as prime candidates for highways could become locales for Downtowns seeking to restore rather than re-pave.