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.

Give modernism a beating

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

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

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Rybczynski on concert halls

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

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

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Tinker at Providence Place

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

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Beautiful Brutalist buildings

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

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Revolutionary new museum!

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

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

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

Macintosh library reveals all

Today is Charles Rennie Macintosh’s birthday, the 148th anniversary of his birth in 1868. Hats off to Joel Pidel and Paul Ranogajec for memorializing the event with the picture above. Paul also linked to an article in Archinect, “The architects … Continue reading

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