Author Archives: David Brussat

Unknown's avatar

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.

Comedia della postal mod

The humorist and fenestration cleanliness engineer Stevenson Hugh Mields has sent along another First Issue envelope with an engraving of not one but two proposed modernist plans, which he has named “Optical Illusion,” and which I have placed for readers’ … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Humor, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Scott Merrill’s Driehaus

Scott Merrill, an architect best known for his work in Seaside and other New Urbanist communities, has won this year’s Driehaus Prize, annually awarded by the school of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Named for Chicago philanthropist and … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bowdlerizing Mozart

In a passage from Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s biography, Mozart, the author discusses posterity’s attempt to sanitize the composer, including his operatic music, some of which sang out in the sort of joy that stuffed-shirt guardians of society’s morality can’t abide. But … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BBC on Mont Saint-Michel

Yesterday, I got an email from the author and director of a documentary on Mont Saint-Michel being produced for BBC France. Denis Sneguirev asked me whether I could provide him with information about the development of the abbey just off … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Other countries, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Out-of-country Cianci tale

Buddy Cianci. RIP. Everyone in Providence has a Buddy story, and many will be told fondly following the death of Vincent A. Cianci Jr. yesterday. My Cianci story – this one, at least – involves a trip to Malta as … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Blast from past, Other countries, Preservation, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Plymouth after World War II

Mark Motte, author with Francis Leazes of Providence: The Renaissance City, urged me to view an old documentary on video called “How We Live Now,” filmed in 1946, about the effort to rebuild Plymouth, the most heavily bombed city per … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Development, Other countries, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More on the WWI winner

Yesterday’s announcement of a winner in the open international competition for a national World War I memorial sent me rushing to find out how it had changed since its selection as one of five finalists. And the winner is Joseph … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

WWI jury’s memorial error

The jury of an international competition to design a national memorial for World War I has made its choice, overlooking a beautiful classical proposal in order to select a more modest proposal that, perhaps, will ruffle a lot fewer feathers. … Continue reading

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

Mittell: “Why I love Lviv”

David A. Mittell Jr., of Boston, has visited Lviv 22 times, some of them while he was on the editorial board of the Providence Journal, where I first met him. He now writes independently, after a stint as editor of … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Other countries, Preservation, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Architecture and Mozart II

Here is a passage from a letter by Mozart in Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s 1982 biography, Mozart, in which the great composer, who was apparently not given to theorizing about music, theorizes about music. The passage might be read with profit by … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Video | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment