
Winner of the 2014 CNU Charter Awards grand prize. (Congress for the New Urbanism)
The New Urbanism is really the old urbanism guided by principles of human scale, residential density, proximity and walkability. Before World War II, cities, towns and villages got built and grew over time with few rules. Builders used forms and practices that had worked well throughout the history of human habitat.
That has changed, of course. Civic evolution was interrupted after the war by an ideological revolution. Tradition was dethroned by modern planning and design, based upon the dubious machine-age idea that honest design looks utilitarian and that beauty is expendable. …
[At this year’s annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism,] panel discussions seemed to make a fetish of being open to modernism – so much so that CNU member David Rau issued a dire warning from the conference: “It was upsetting to discover at CNU in Buffalo that New Urbanism has been divorced from Traditional Architecture. Kaput, the marriage is over.”
[To read the rest of this column, please visit The Providence Journal.]
About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally.
I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002.
I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato.
If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457.
Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I
would have written."
- Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.
John Anderson it’s remarks like this that resulted in making you the receipient of the
Barranco award —-:-)
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Virus? I was being gentle!
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I have a lot of respect for David Rau, but I don’t think he has been paying attention for the last 22 years. There have been plenty of Modernist buildings built in New Urbanist projects starting with Seaside. As for your characterization of Modernism as some terrible virus infecting New Urbanism, well, I appreciate a bit of hyperbole as much as the next guy. But that’s over the top.
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