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.

Buffing the downtown fabric

The expected purchase by Arnold C. “Buff” Chace of the Providence Journal’s headquarter’s building – not the old Journal building of 1906 but the “new” one of 1934, designed by noted Motor City architect Albert Kahn – is extraordinarily good … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Perfect critique, then … pfft!

There is almost nothing that I could disagree with or add to in “Empty Gestures: Starchitecture’s Swan Song,” a critique by Peter Buchanan in the Architectural Review. Nothing, that is, except that after so much striking perception, Buchanan does not … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Development | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Criticism of criticism of …

That’s the title of a famous H.L. Mencken essay called “Criticism of Criticism of Criticism” about the convolutions of critical theoretics. An article by Mark Minkjan in one of my favorite blogs, Failed Architecture, is called “ArchDaily and Architecture Criticism.” … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bygone architecture criticism

Here, reprinted in Architectural Review, is a long essay of architecture criticism of a sort that we never see anymore – detailed critique of a set of buildings by a famous architect, in this case Edwin Lutyens. The essay, “New … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Sketching my mom of moms

Here’s the column I wrote in 2004 about the annual meeting in Providence of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators. I was going to write it mainly about the work of a sort of sketchy illustrator from San Francisco in … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Blast from past, Books and Culture, Providence, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Polemicists in pen and ink

Someone recently twitted me for displaying on my blog beautiful drawings of a proposed new Boston City Hall designed (and illustrated) by Aaron Helfand. My correspondent said the building might not look as nice as the drawing when it is … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“My Modernist Parents”

What would it be like as a 7-year-old to have “modernist architects” for parents? The film Me and My Moulton answers that question. Inspired by director Torill Kove’s growing up in Norway under the roof of such a species, the … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Book/Film Reviews, Humor | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Pawtucket! Woonsocket!

With Pawtucket apparently about to lose its ball team, the city’s name is in the news, and it has caused me to marvel at the wonderful names cities in Rhode Island have. Pawtucket has a frankly puckish character. It’s nickname … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture, Humor, Providence, Rhode Island | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Helfand’s Boston City Hall

As I remarked in my last post, “Edges, shapes and patterns!,” Boston City Hall’s famous inhumanity came up in Tuesday’s lecture by Ann Sussman, co-author of Cognitive Architecture. At her lecture was Aaron Helfand, an architect at the Boston firm … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Blast from past, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Edges, shapes and patterns!

Edges, patterns and shapes affect our perception of the built environment through the millennia worth of knowledge accumulated by our brain about our world. Only 70,000 years from the savannah and, as Ann Sussman put it last night, “your subconscious … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments