Monthly Archives: June 2016

‘Lost Providence’ and readers

Posted on June 18, 2016 by David Brussat

In this digital age, with its mobility and its easy interactivity, I have been trying to imagine how to get readers of this blog interested in helping me write my book Lost Providence, an initiative just now under way. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Give modernism a beating

Posted on June 17, 2016 by David Brussat

This list of architectural models in movies that look askance at modern architecture through the lens of film was linked from a piece in Architizer warning architects not to go see The Architect, a movie coming out soon. It mentioned … Continue reading →

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Architects and The Architect

Posted on June 17, 2016 by David Brussat

A soon-to-be-released movie called The Architect has ruffled the feathers of the community of architects. The movie portrays architects stereotypically, as we have come to know them. As an architect, the main character is arrogant, vain, egotistical, holier than thou, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Rybczynski on concert halls

Posted on June 16, 2016 by David Brussat

I have not spared the architecture critic Witold Rybczynski my critique of his dithering on the greatest architectural questions of our time, but his latest piece, “The Concert Hall, Reimagined,” in Architect journal on the removal of concert halls from … Continue reading →

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Worthy R.I. Hall of Fame

Posted on June 15, 2016 by David Brussat

Rhode Island has had a hall of fame, as distinguished from, let’s say, a sports or a music hall of fame, since 1965. It is, however, one of only four states without a true home for its pantheon of venerated … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Rhode Island | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Tinker at Providence Place

Posted on June 13, 2016 by David Brussat

Providence’s downtown mall is getting its first big renovations since it opened in 1999. So said the Providence Journal on Sunday in “Providence Place mall in line for first major overhaul .” J.C. Penney shut its doors last year, lasting … Continue reading →

Posted in Development | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beautiful Brutalist buildings

Posted on June 11, 2016 by David Brussat

Contradiction in terms? Not to architecture critic Jonathan Glancey; still less, one must assume, to Peter Chadwick, who has devoted an entire book, This Brutal World, from which Glancey has selected his favorites in “Ten beautiful Brutalist buildings” for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Revolutionary new museum!

Posted on June 10, 2016 by David Brussat

About a year ago, the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown was completed, replacing the Yorktown Victory Center – a quotidian slanty modernist version of colonial (it is brick) – with a classical, quasi-Palladian building of considerable merit. Today, Virginia senior … Continue reading →

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Why art is not progressive

Posted on June 9, 2016 by David Brussat

William Hazlitt, the British essayist and critic of the early 19th century, wrote “Why the Arts Are Not Progressive” for the Morning Chronicle, of London, in 1814. He argues that science is progressive but art is not: What is mechanical, … Continue reading →

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Hitler’s revenge on America

Posted on June 8, 2016 by David Brussat

The journal Places has published, as the inaugural installment in its Future Archive series of forgotten writing of the past century, a 1968 essay for Art in America by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy called “Hitler’s Revenge.” The essay is introduced by Despina … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments