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.

To the TradArch conference!

Tomorrow I jet down to Charleston, S.C., to confer on matters architectural with people I’ve never met but with whom readers of this blog are familiar. They are the TradArch family of architects and architectural busybodies (like me). Before I … Continue reading

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Paris cries out for your help

Michael Mehaffy has sent an SOS to all lovers of Paris. Write, if only one line, to the judges who will rule soon on an appeal of a stop-work order against a developer who is trashing his own building, La … Continue reading

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Monkey with a T-square?

“Hetero or not?” and “Is this classical?” are parlor games played by members of the TradArch list, the online discussion group for classical architects. Will classicists find a particular building “canonical” or outside of the canon? Recently, a thread of … Continue reading

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Growing dull in Denver

I clicked with no small degree of excitement on ArchNewsNow.com, the piece by a Denver architect about insipidity in the Mile-High City. “Denver Is a Great City, So Why the Bad Buildings?” asks Jeffrey Sheppard. Denver is experiencing the sort … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Heterodoxia working capital

Heterodoxia Architectonica, the treatise being written primarily by Andrés Duany and whose text I am penciling my way through as text editor, contains material that has been made public only in dribs and drabs, mostly pictorial. Its author has over … Continue reading

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Return to the establishment

It appears that tradition has begun its long march back through the institutions, at least in Britain. Oliver Wainwright’s latest piece in the Guardian, reprinted in Architectural Record, is “The Tories’ New Design Guide Backs Tiny, Unlivable, Backward-Looking Homes.” It … Continue reading

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To Corb or not to Corb

I am at this moment watching a Swiss video called Le Corbusier: Why he is adored and detested. The screenshot from the video atop this post captures his pitch to build another of his machines for dying in (yes, that’s … Continue reading

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In defense of AutoCAD!

My post on CAD – which I wish I’d called “CAD or cad?” – has drawn some comment on TradArch from the technique’s defenders. Among the most eloquent and entertaining is Nathaniel Walker’s assertion that computer aided design is just … Continue reading

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Doric column on ArchiCAD

I suppose that while everyone is discussing Le Corbusier, it may not be inappropriate to discuss in this corner another arguably deplorable machine, computer-aided design (CAD). John Margolis, the recently resigned president of the ICAA’s New England chapter who moved … Continue reading

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Save the bad public spaces!

The Project for Public Spaces, in New York City, has sent out an alert regarding a new public program: “U.S. Government Announces Campaign to Save Historically Bad Public Spaces.” At first I thought this was just another silly April Fool’s … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Humor, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments