Monthly Archives: October 2014

Bad Scupture Park Hotel?

Posted on October 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Originally posted on Architecture Here and There:
Proposed design for Parcel 12 hotel, from 2006, by the Carpionato Group. A new proposal has arisen for Parcel 12, the triangular Capital Center District land at the northeast corner of Kennedy Plaza…

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KP discombobulation

Posted on October 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a piece about Kennedy Plaza by Brandon Klayko for archpaper.com. Donald Powers, founder of Union Studio Architects and designer of the very nice master plan, above, for Kennedy Plaza proposed in 2013, was clearly the author’s primary source … Continue reading →

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The sad primacy of Unite

Posted on October 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Regarding the minimal-security affordable housing project in Harlem by David Adjaye, this morning I have received a trenchant email from Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture: How strange, by coincidence I saw this Horror in Harlem … Continue reading →

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Against Adjaye’s agitprop

Posted on October 9, 2014 by David Brussat

Adding to the widespread perception that British architect David Adjaye’s affordable-housing project in Harlem looks like a prison, architect Marc Szarkowski offers, on TradArch, this pertinent riposte to the recent mass exercise in droolery from the commentariat: Let’s see, from … Continue reading →

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Bad Scupture Park Hotel?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by David Brussat

A new proposal has arisen for Parcel 12, the triangular Capital Center District land at the northeast corner of Kennedy Plaza that I’ve long called Bad Sculpture Park, in honor of its cast of uninspiring works of art. The Journal’s … Continue reading →

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Attack on Kennedy Plaza

Posted on October 7, 2014 by David Brussat

My last post may have unintentionally dissed Burnside Park and Kennedy Plaza, leaving readers with the impression that they were failures, and that Providence civic leaders and city officials, along with the state transit authority, were valiantly riding to the … Continue reading →

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Jane Jacobs and KP

Posted on October 6, 2014 by David Brussat

Jane Jacobs had some interesting things to say in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) about parks, and while Kennedy Plaza is not a park (though it has Burnside Park right next to it), some of it … Continue reading →

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Tra La Corboobier

Posted on October 6, 2014 by David Brussat

I take your pants away! Seriously, this recollection in The Guardian of a British journalist, Taya Zinkin, seeking to interview Le Corbusier in India in 1965, including a long, obnoxious quotation, is totally unbelievable – in short, totally believable.

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Radiant Garden City Beautiful

Posted on October 5, 2014 by David Brussat

If wizards like Henry Hope Reed can be wrong on occasion, so can Jane Jacobs, who in our era is even more famous for her own pathbreaking book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Its chief claim to … Continue reading →

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Photographs in action

Posted on October 4, 2014 by David Brussat

This ad for Leica, obtained from the website Sploid, commemorates the pathbreaking German camera firm’s 100th anniversary by splicing together a series of famous photos that have gone live through some sort of animation technology. Very interesting. There is some … Continue reading →

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