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.

Cosmo + Prozac Architects

This morning, before any of us had arisen, my wife murmured that my brother’s dog Cosmo wasn’t doing well, showing the signs of anxiety at Extended Stay America, where they’re awaiting the renovation of their house in Gaithersburg, Md. While … Continue reading

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The secret lives of scalies

Scalies, according to Alissa Walker’s excellent report on an exhibit out in Berkeley, “The Secret Lives of Little People in Architectural Renderings,” are the little people in architectural renderings. That’s the term used by professionals. Scalies. They are mainly there … Continue reading

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Heidi’s chilly new neighbor

Kudos to Gizmodo.com not just for the inspired montage above but to its correspondent Alissa Walker, who reports that starchitect Thom Mayne has announced an evaporating glass slab for poor Vals, Switz. At 80 stories and 1,250 feet in the … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Plecnik capitals you can see

Here is that page of column capitals disambiguated from the shot taken and sent to TradArch by Angelo Gueli yesterday and posted in a cropped and undisambiguated (I think that’s a word) by me. The photos were too small for … Continue reading

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Recapture Joze Plecnik!

Hats off to Angelo Gueli*, who photographed and sent to TradArch a pair fascinating pages from a book he has acquired of the work of Slovenian architect Joze Plecnik (1872-1957). He is a favorite of Andrès Duany and a candidate … Continue reading

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Friday: “Americans in Paris”

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 completion. Carlhian was a Frenchman who attended L’École des Beaux-Arts – the subject of … Continue reading

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Houses by George & Andrew

This website of houses, new and restored, and other work by Andrew Gould and George Holt, mostly in Charleston, including some remarkably tiny ones, cannot be resisted. See if you can examine the shots of each house in turn and … Continue reading

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ICAA’s Arthur Ross Awards

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art has announced its Arthur Ross awards for 2015. The top award, for architecture, goes to Adam Architecture, the London firm founded by Robert Adam. His inventive classicism joins his peerless erudition in the … Continue reading

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Kunstler’s City Beautiful

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The World Made by Hand, and coiner of the word “crudscape,” knows all too well what we as a civilization have wrought since we won World War II. In many … Continue reading

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Landmark the neighbors

Many Providence residents live on beautiful streets lined with houses built before ugly architecture became almost mandatory. Few neighborhoods are dominated by midcentury modern houses, although some jackanapes might even argue that they qualify as historic. Historic, perhaps, if the … Continue reading

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