Author Archives: David Brussat

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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.

900 pages on WTC rebuild

I am remiss in not having been aware, until yesterday, of Columbia University emerita professor Lynne Sagalyn’s 900-page book on the politics and economics of rebuilding the World Trade Center after 9/11. It is called  Power at Ground Zero: Politics, … Continue reading

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Helsinki art stinker junked!

The proposed Guggenheim Helsinki just went belly up, glug, glug, glug, after a five-hour meeting of the Finnish capital’s city council, which put the kibosh on a project one opponent called “a McDonald’s of art.” Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported the … Continue reading

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“Three towers of evil”?

A critic of the three towers proposed for the Jewelry District in Providence, city council president Luis Aponte, calls them the “three towers of evil.” Well, that’s a little much. “Foe dubs proposed Providence high-rises ‘towers of evil,’” by Associated … Continue reading

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Review: 1 WTC’s biography

The new World Trade Center reflects what was worst about the old WTC towers and their brethren demolished by terrorists on 9/11. The Twin Towers were sterile, inhumane structures that epitomized the crushing brutality of urbanism at its worst in … Continue reading

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Unbuilt New York (Whew!)

The architectural writer Alexandra Lange reviews Never Built New York in The New Yorker: Her piece is called “The New York that Could Have Been,” a title that suggests she yearns for it. The book, written and compiled by Greg … Continue reading

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Modern music in recovery

Here is an interview by Paul Senz of the Catholic World Report of Robert R. Reilly, who amid a career in the foreign-policy establishment discovered that modern classical music has undergone a renaissance. In fact, he finds that this revival … Continue reading

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A Thanksgiving foto feast

Give thanks for Lee Juskalian, my West Coast friend who continues to avidly follow development news in Providence (occasionally letting me in on some of it). He has sent me these marvelous photos. Thanks, also, to the unnamed artists whose … Continue reading

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Porto beauty trumps video

Last night I posted a Kuriositas video of Madrid that, using time-lapse and hyper-lapse videography caught the beauty of Spain’s capital. It was by by Kirill Neiezhmakov. I visited his website and found a video, “A Day in Porto,” Portugal’s … Continue reading

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Madrid time- & hyperlapse

I’ve never been to Madrid, personally or, really, photographically, until this evening. The video on Kuriositas, “Madrid Timelapse & Hyperlapse,” by Kirill Neiezhmakov, brings the beauties of the capital city of Spain before our eyes, most delightfully, though Neiezhmakov could … Continue reading

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Jane Jacobs at Ada Books

The photo shows the late Jane Jacobs sitting on a stool at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village. On Saturday evening, I saw Jane Jacobs sitting on a table at Ada Books. She was in the form of a … Continue reading

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