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.

Cutting myself to fit

This is to notify readers that the attempt to maintain the weekly online version of the late, lamented Providence Journal column has fallen prey to the constraints imposed by the need to produce a new weekly column. The new column, … Continue reading

Posted in Art and design | 4 Comments

Bowling trophy architecture

Read “Top Seven Reasons Behind the Shanghaiing of New York (#Dubai-on-Hudson),” architect and urban designer John Massengale’s astute analysis of the linkage between Big Finance and Big Architecture. His assessment is depressing, because it looks impregnable. He uses an illustration … Continue reading

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Potemkin justice for Russia?

Far be it from me to endorse anything proposed by the regime of Vladimir Putin, but permit me to embrace the classical judicial complex to be built in St. Petersburg. As the blogger Andrew Cusack points out, the Russian architect … Continue reading

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Hard to build unnatural park

The parks committee of the Route 195 Redevelopment District Commission met yesterday afternoon to hear WaterFire generalissimo Barnaby Evans urge, late in the design process, that the western end of the proposed pedestrian bridge be raised to let the river … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A landscape urbanism primer

Architect Marc Szarkowski, responding to news that the so-called landscape urbanists are helping to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the famous British gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown (1716-1783), offers this chart on how to design a park from the landscape-urbanist perspective. … Continue reading

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The fickle finger of Frank

The greatest architect in the world flipped the bird at a journalist last week during a press conference in Spain. He later apologized. The best photo of the event is above, from The Guardian, but the best story is by … Continue reading

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Landscape styles at war

” ‘Now there’ said he, pointing his finger, ‘I make a comma, and there’ pointing to another spot, ‘where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where an interruption is desirable to break the … Continue reading

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Column: Yes, alas, we have modernism in R.I.

“God will provide,” my editor Bob Whitcomb used to say. This morning, as I struggled to find a column topic, He placed one right before my eyes, occupying the very space where my regular Thursday column in the Providence Journal … Continue reading

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Very merry Gehry ferry

The bling has hit the fan in Paris. Frank Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton opened yesterday, and we can all swoon to the moon and back if we dare. I am linking everyone to one of my best sources of fun, … Continue reading

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Xi a Chinese visionary?

Far be it from me to agree with the head of the Chinese Communist Party on anything, but please excuse me for agreeing with Xi Jinping on one thing. Speaking to a literary symposium last week, the Chinese president said, … Continue reading

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