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.

“Vessel” and Gaillard Center

Far distant on the spectrum of the architectural firmament from “The Vessel,” whose status as Jim Kunstler’s Eyesore of the Month I touted in a post, “Stairway to nowhere in N.Y.,” earlier today, is the new Gaillard Center, a concert … Continue reading

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Stairway to nowhere in N.Y.

Above is “The Vessel,” so-called. Jim Kunstler has selected it for October’s Eyesore of the Month, on his website. “The Vessel” is designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the British architect who specializes in the ridiculous. It is apparently an attempt to mimic … Continue reading

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Cry for Palmyra, not Paris?

Far be it from me to wish people would shut up about Palmyra and cry for Paris instead. For one thing, Paris isn’t anywhere near as close to death as Palmyra and other archaeological sites in the ISIS cross-hairs. But … Continue reading

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Hark, a noble local Nobel!

Congratulations to Brown University for the Nobel won by one of its physics professors, Michael Kosterlitz. Moreover, congrats to Kosterlitz himself. His Nobel threw me for a loop. It was, I thought, for a discovery in topography, as if he’d … Continue reading

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Notre Dame’s 6-10 charrette

Here are the boards – images reflecting thoughts thus far – of the charrette or brainstorming session on the 6-10 connector and Route 195 land issues, hosted last month by Prof. Philip Bess and his graduate students from the School … Continue reading

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From Bauhaus to Coolhaus

  The definition of “to brand” must be to promote a product as the opposite of what it is. For example, take Coolhaus Ice Cream. It riffs on the Bauhaus, the Weimar German cult of artists from which emerged modern … Continue reading

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100 best architecture blogs

Perceptive readers of this architecture blog will have noticed a beribboned badge, or the image thereof, in the upper right corner of the home page. It reads: “Top 100 Achitecture Blogs,” signalling that Architecture Here and There has been selected … Continue reading

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The architecture of music

And vice versa, with painting thrown in. This is the subject of a fascinating essay written a decade ago by Steven Semes, author more recently of one of my bibles, The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, … Continue reading

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Explore the world with AIA

The American Institute of Architects has announced its sponsorship of a new set of tours that even I would be happy to take. They are not the tours I would expect the AIA to host, not with its almost exclusively … Continue reading

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Will the real Seagram Building please stand up?

On Sunday I posted “Tom Wolfe and Henry Reed,” and to my mortification was informed by a reader that the Seagram Building was not the building in the photo I used to illustrate the piece. I plead guilty. Who could … Continue reading

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