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.

Repost: Happy or Hayworth

Originally posted on Architecture Here and There:
The American Institute of Architects has announced its basic lack of seriousness as an organization by announcing that the artist who recorded “Happy” will be the keynote speaker for its upcoming convention. Now,…

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Gentling gentrification

A stinging rebuke to Australia’s capital city of Canberra, and thence to just about every other city that has embraced the placemaking agenda, comes from Oliver Wainwright in the Guardian, “50 years of gentrification: Will all our cities turn into … Continue reading

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Browbeating Boston’s brand

Marty Walsh has taken over as Boston mayor after 20 years of Tom Menino, who used to decide what sort of hat new buildings would wear – most famously, the “tiara” of a glitzy tower called R2-D2, near the Pru. … Continue reading

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The Granoff showdown

At Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Blackstone Neighborhood Organization, at the Central Congregational Church, some attendees reported they’d seen surveyors at the Granoff estate. This suggests that Paula and Leonard Granoff may attempt to complete their supposedly incomplete application for … Continue reading

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Disproportion by definition

Above is my promised second reclining nude by Ingres, “The Sleeping Odalisque,” to be delivered after responses to my post “Naked proportion.” My promise to post another reclining nude by Ingres was slowed down by an apparent insufficiency of response. … Continue reading

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Placemaking under siege

Audun Engh, of INTBAU, the International Network of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, recently sent to TradArch readers an update by Ellie Violet Bramley on the work of Jan Gehl, the pioneer of city livability. Bramley’s article in the Guardian, … Continue reading

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Architecture is qualiadelic

Originally posted on Architecture Here and There:
Qualia characterize the features of things. (en.wikipedia.org) My brother, who lives in Oregon, has just published a book. It delves into the most intimate and profound aspects of ritual, and how engaging with…

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Naked proportion

Here is Roger Scruton’s passage regarding the human body and its proportions, from Chapter 3 of The Classical Vernacular: Imagine a beautifully formed body – as depicted by Ingres, for example. Here we see a certain kind of perfection, in … Continue reading

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Scruton on proportion

As an advocate of classicism I’ve always been sort of absent without official leave from discussions of proportion. Perhaps that is because it involves mathematics, which I have tried to keep at arm’s length throughout my life. Thank God for … Continue reading

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Architecture is qualiadelic

My brother, who lives in Oregon, has just published a book. It delves into the most intimate and profound aspects of ritual, and how engaging with one’s own patterns of ritual creatively can improve one’s life, and open one’s mind … Continue reading

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