Author Archives: David Brussat

Unknown's avatar

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.

Between the lines of the NYT

Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen, the architect and the writer who called on architects to pay more attention to public taste, do not seem to realize it, and would probably not admit it, but their essay in the New York … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beautiful seasonal greeting

The above photograph was featured on the main international news page of the Providence Journal. I send it out as my gift to readers. Beauty can persist even in the heart of darkness. Red Square may not be that place … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Other countries, Photography | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Betsky goes ballistic

Let the establishment – in this case the New York Times – allow just a single peep against modern architecture, and its enforcers suffer total meltdown of equanimity. Aaron Betsky, the architecture critic for the journal of the American Institute … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments

Raise the BAR, Duany

It is extremely encouraging to read in the Charleston Post and Courier that Andrès Duany has been hired to help advise the city on how to improve its Board of Architectural Review. By approving a provocative modernist Clemson building in … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Leon Krier’s tale of post-carbuncle London

Originally posted on Architecture Here and There:
The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral takes center stage in this effort to imagine what London must have been like centuries ago. Here is Leon Krier’s piece, “Sustainable Architecture and the Legible City,”…

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Existential Candyland

I play Candyland with my little boy, Billy, age 5. He is very good at it, as the philosophical discourse linked below demonstrates. He occasionally moves his marker to the colored square where the colored card tells him it ought … Continue reading

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

Cuba libre, let us hope

Other commentators can and will masticate the president’s new Cuba policy, but let me shed a few tears for the Cuba of yesterday known as the Cuba of today that might not last far into the Cuba of tomorrow. Havana … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Other countries, Photography, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

“Change” at Chartres

That change is the only constant is one of my least favorite aphorisms. And it is among the least inimical of lessons to be drawn from the ongoing “restoration” of Chartres Cathedral, off the west coast of France. The job … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Other countries, Preservation | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Blackstone blitzkrieg

The Granoff proposal to split their land at Blackstone Boulevard and Rochambeau Avenue up into 12 lots (the two largest would include their fine old house built in 1915 and owned by the Granoffs since the ’60s) was rejected by … Continue reading

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

Temper of the Times

This cartoon by Olivier Schrauwen that ran with “How to Rebuild Architecture,” by Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen in yesterday’s New York Times is most evocative. An architect is directing the attention of another man to his stupid-looking houses but … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Art and design, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , | 22 Comments