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.

Feel it, be it, don’t teach it!

According to a report in ArchDaily.com, the Royal Institute of British Architects has released a survey that supports the contention that students graduating from architecture school do not know how to practice architecture. This comes as no surprise to anyone … Continue reading

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Buda + Pest = Budapest x 3

Here are three videos of Budapest, “Gay and Beautiful Budapest” from 1938 of 10:28 minutes in length; the second a Rick Steves travel TV episode from 2004 of 26:08 minutes; and, finally, from 2014, “AMAZING Walking Tour!!!” of the Hungarian … Continue reading

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Petition the mossback AIA

John Massengale has a great post called “I am not a fashionista” on his blog. At its conclusion is a link to a petition to ask the American Institute of Architects to diversify the architects and architecture it promotes. At … Continue reading

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Online photo credit sourcing

If readers have braved the less than “Sex and Violence” allure of this post’s headline, they are about to indulge me in some inside online baseball. It has to do with the touchy subject of properly crediting the sources of … Continue reading

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Better lights for Providence

Not long after starting to write about architecture in 1990 I would occasionally hector the city fathers in Providence to use sodium vapor bulbs in downtown’s historic lamps, as was and still is done on Benefit Street. That, I thought, … Continue reading

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Design a living planet

One of the delights of blogging is the ability to insert a couple of paragraphs from what you’re reading as you go along. So here’s another set, on pages 144-45, from Design for a Living Planet, by Nikos Salingaros and … Continue reading

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Architecture in the crosshairs

Steve Hansen captures valuable territory in the recent Bingler, Pedersen, Betsky style-wars skirmish. His essay “Architecture Should Be Functional, Not Merely Daring,” is on the website Sourceable.com. But while Hansen puts some good wood upside Aaron Betsky’s head, he ignores … Continue reading

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Grr! Paul Rudolph cat fight

Goshen, N.Y., is up in arms again as the city enters a new phase of combat over saving the Orange County Government Center (1967), designed by iconic modernist Paul Rudolph in the Brutalist style. Most of the public wants it … Continue reading

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Modernism’s “Deflategate”

The BBC documentary Vienna: City of Dreams is about as entirely marinated in modernism’s institutional bias as it is possible for a film of an hour and a half to be. And yet it is beautiful in spite of itself. … Continue reading

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Stewardship at Downton

Steve Lawton sent to the Practice of New Urbanism list a few choice lines about recent scenes from Downton Abbey. He notes the care with which an aristocrat addresses the proposals of a developer, circa 1922 (I think), to build … Continue reading

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