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.

Things we’ve left behind us

Hats off to Cliff Vanover for sending this glorious photo, a timely reminder of the things we’ve left behind us. One we know will return next winter. The others … well, some day beautiful buildings will come back into fashion.

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Beam me up, Alex!

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam recently saw “Look Up!” – the TV ad beamed around the country by the American Institute of Architects. In his latest piece, “Look up, there is a problem with architecture,” he seems not to have … Continue reading

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Latest on Macintosh rebuild

An experienced Glasgow firm, Page/Park, has been chosen in a competition to restore and renovate the burned masterpiece of Scotland’s great architect Charles Rennie Macintosh – the Glasgow School of Art and its Macintosh Library. The Guardian’s story runs under … Continue reading

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Last wooden bridge in Prov.

In an excellent online post for the Providence Journal, photographer Sandor Bodo notes the demise and, more recently, the removal of the last wooden river bridge in Providence. It is called “Documenting the fall of Providence’s last wooden river bridge,” … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Book/Film Reviews, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Hyperadvertising in Russia

Roy Lewis has sent two marvelous illustrations, below, that remind me of my post on the “Hyperphotography of Jean-François Rauzier,” in particular his “Versailles,” above, which I used to illustrate a number of posts a year or so ago. When … Continue reading

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Yemen, we hardly knew ye!

Jules Pitt has sent to TradArch an extraordinary photo of a town in Yemen, which he notes is in the news. So it is. I suppose the civil war there (now it’s a civil war; what has it been these … Continue reading

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Surprise! Walkers can drive

City Lab has an article by Eric Jaffe called “Toward a Simple and Universal Law of Pedestrian Behavior” that belongs in the files of the Department of Redundancy Department. Not that it isn’t interesting. To a flâneur like me, anything … Continue reading

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At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

Friday evening’s lecture by Margot Ellis at the College Club of Boston about Americans in Paris, the book she wrote with Jean Paul Carlhian about the American students at L’École des Beaux-Arts, was a marvel to behold – as is … Continue reading

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Thom Mayne in Alaska, 2005

I referred yesterday in “Heidi’s chilly new neighbor,” to my column almost precisely a decade ago on Thom Mayne’s submission in a design competition for a new state capitol in Juneau, Alaska. Here is that column: A ‘bad-boy’ capitol for … Continue reading

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Friday: “Americans in Paris”

Originally posted on Architecture Here and There:
Front cover of “Americans in Paris.” (amazon.com) Margot Ellis will be in Boston to discuss her book Americans in Paris, co-authored and inspired by the late Jean Paul Carlhian, who died before its…

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