Monthly Archives: July 2015

The sculpture of place

Here are shots of the work of Matthew Simmonds, a British sculptor who lives in Pietrasanta, Italy. Beautiful! (Here is his website.) Hats off to Roy Lewis, who sent photos to the TradArch list, eliciting more sent by others. I … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Easy street to civic beauty

Even though there may be two, three or more street lamps for every building on a city street, street lamps are far less expensive than buildings. Lining a city block with elegant lampposts is a cheap, fast, easy road to … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Mission impossible in R.I.?

Here is a 10-story Marriott hotel scheduled for October groundbreaking in downtown Spartanburg, S.C. It is lovely, and it is being proposed, designed and built by people quite as human as those who do such work in downtown Providence, R.I., … Continue reading

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Save market in Porto, Port.

The blog Old Portuguese Stuff is crusading to save the interior of the Mercado do Bolhäo, in Porto, one of Portugal’s most storied cities. It is home to the British architect and engineer Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths … Continue reading

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Top classical WWI entries

Here, courtesy of the organization sponsoring the design competition for a monument to commemorate the First World War, are links to some if not all of the classical entries. These are considered “the best” from among a couple of dozen … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Design for a WWI memorial

Not long ago I wrote of an open competition for a national monument for World War I to be built at Pershing Square. The square has honored Gen. John “Black Jack” Perhsing, commander of U.S. forces in Europe, for decades. … Continue reading

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Just for the Palladiophobes

Here is a brief quote from Humberto Eco’s Prague Cemetery that might shiver some timbers, or not: And I could tell you about the Knights Templar and Scottish Freemasonry, about the Rite of Herodom, the Rite of Swedenborg, the Rite … Continue reading

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The satisfactions of Satie

Erik Satie is a French composer of whom I know little, but am very familiar with one of his pieces, the first of his three “Gnossiennes,” which I suspect most readers will recognize as well. It is the first video … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The dark caverns of history

About halfway through Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery I have not stumbled, so far, upon the travelogue sequences I promised to record for readers. But the book has brought us down into the darkest caverns of history, spiced further by … Continue reading

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Hypocrisy of the modernists

A good friend who is also, by turns, a modernist sent me an old critique of his from when the Ruane Center for the Humanities, at Providence College, was dedicated. I referred to the center in a post today, “Take … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Providence | Tagged , , | 3 Comments