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.

What the Carbuncle bestows

Here is a fatuously furious piece about the Walkie-Talkie building that just won Britain’s Carbuncle Cup. “The Walkie Talkie is a sty in London’s eye,” by Ned Beauman, browbeats the building as if it had committed a dark sin equalled … Continue reading

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Tidbits of stadium news

The job of negotiating a deal between Rhode Island and the owners of the Pawtucket Red Sox on a stadium in Providence grows harder day by day, it seems. Recent news that talks with Brown University over selling its land … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development, I-195 Redevelopment District, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Classicism in Newport News

Calder Loth, a Virginia architectural historian, provided TradArch with good grist for chewing when he offered up a photo of a newly completed chapel, among the atest of a series of classical buildings on the new main campus at Christopher … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Met, NYPL dodge ’40s bullet

A surprising revelation in an interesting paragraph from Michael Gross’s history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogues’ Gallery: [NYC parks commissioner and Met board member] Robert Moses’s first impression of the new director [Francis Henry Taylor, 1940-55] was changing. … Continue reading

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Surprised and astonished

One of the pet peeves of Michael Gross in his Rogues’ Gallery, a history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is how long it took its board’s stuffed shirts to accept modern art into its collection. Here is an amusing … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Rip facade off mod angst

Very interesting chat in the Guardian, “Should Britain’s ‘worst building’ be torn down?” with its art critic Jonathan Jones and Design Museum director Deyan Sudjik debating the future of the recent winner of the Carbuncle Cup, the Walkie-Talkie building, and … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Cloistered words of beauty

John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave a park in the upper reaches of Manhattan to New York City and built a museum in the grand manner on its grounds for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Books and Culture, Landscape Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Mont Saint-Michel of old

On my bucket list is a visit to Mont Saint-Michel, a monestary surrounded by a village on an island just over half a mile off the coast of Lower Normandy, in France. It originated as a fort in ancient times … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Landscape Architecture, Other countries, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Style vs. form balderdash

Justin Shubow, the provocative head of the National Civic Art Society, has posted a segment from a 1996 book review by the late Paul Malo of Roger Scruton’s The Classical Vernacular: Architecture in a Time of Nihilism, which I recently … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments