Nuff said at Kennedy Plaza

Posted on February 8, 2015 by David Brussat
New bicycle racks at Kennedy Plaza, in Providence. (Photo by David Brussat)

New bicycle stands at Kennedy Plaza, in Providence. (Photo by David Brussat)

Above are the bicycle stands chosen for and installed at the “new” Kennedy Plaza, in Providence. Below are the bicycle stands approved (but not yet funded) for the city of Charleston. Which design represents the more advanced aesthetic?

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Bicycle stand chosen by Charleston; click to enlarge. (Bevan & Liberatos)

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.
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7 Responses to Nuff said at Kennedy Plaza

  1. Tim Brown says:
    February 13, 2015 at 1:41 pm

    What exactly qualifies as an advanced aesthetic, David? From all of your writing I’ve read the advanced aesthetic is the one which is in line with your own taste. More specifically the one which embraces a false nostalgia for an imagined past, never experienced. You’re schtick is getting old.

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    • David Brussat says:
      February 13, 2015 at 1:59 pm

      It’s not a matter of taste or nostalgia, false or otherwise, Tim, but of biology. Scientists increasingly find that decoration fills the brain’s need for information that used to help us survive. Modern architecture basically strips the environment of “information,” and hence is inherently disconcerting or dissatisfying. Taste is a term that is convenient for those who want to deprecate what most people like for deeply intelligent instinctive reasons. If my unconventional viewpoint gets on your nerves, feel free to discontinue reading it.

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  3. Anne Fairfax says:
    February 8, 2015 at 10:29 pm

    David, this post is so much in the “Golden City” style of Henry Hope Reed. One needn’t really say too much to drive home the point. I’m such a huge fan of your work, and read everything you post, as well as forward to all of my more intelligent friends. ..thank you for enriching the argument.

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  4. ESCONDIDO2014 says:
    February 8, 2015 at 10:08 pm

    It is sad to see that given the thousands of possibilities that this is the best that Providence could do. Wasn’t the slogan just a couple years ago “The Creative Capital?”

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