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.

My reply to that then

Posted on July 12, 2014 by David Brussat

Since we are already in the wayback machine, here is the column I wrote following the publication of Journal reporter John Castellucci’s interview with modernist Derek Bradford back in 1996: The silence of the modernists April 18, 1996 JOHN CASTELLUCCI’S … Continue reading →

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How modernism thinks

Posted on July 12, 2014 by David Brussat

Derek Bradford, the modernist architect, longtime professor of architecture at RISD and Capital Center design review panelist whom I mentioned in Thursday’s column “Providence’s long romance with brick,” was interviewed by Providence Journal reporter John Castellucci back in 1996. Castellucci … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Providence | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Hazlitt on painting

Posted on July 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from my favorite writer William Hazlitt’s essay “On the Pleasure of Painting,” written, I think, in the early 1820s. The famous British critic is known most for his essays on Shakespeare and other literature, but his … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Column: Providence’s long romance with brick

Posted on July 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Brick often finds itself in the dog house. Long ago in Providence, architectural historian and local preservation heroine Antoinette Downing, sitting on the design review panel of the Capital Center Commission, is said to have sniggered at one of the … Continue reading →

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Dish Dallas kitsch

Posted on July 9, 2014 by David Brussat

Mark Lamster writes about architecture for the Dallas Morning News, which owns, at least for now, my employer, the Providence Journal (for sale by A.H. Belo, which also owns the Morning News).* So I was predisposed to be generous in … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Providence | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Traditional Building confab

Posted on July 7, 2014 by David Brussat

Boston hosts the latest Traditional Building Conference next week. The event, on Wednesday and Thursday, July 16-17, will feature a range of panels, and some are sure to tickle the fancy of fanciers of traditional architecture. Several of these traditionalist … Continue reading →

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Washington perceived

Posted on July 4, 2014 by David Brussat

A few random shots of our nation’s capital on its birthday (in 2011, actually):  

Posted in Architecture, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Architecture’s slap in Charleston’s face

Posted on July 3, 2014 by David Brussat

Last week, Charleston, S.C., gave Clemson University the city’s official blessing to poke a stick in its own eye. Unless blocked in court, a school of architecture, modernist in design, will be built amidst the city’s historic district. In the … Continue reading →

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

What are you trying to hide?

Posted on July 2, 2014 by David Brussat

I spent much of yesterday and today trying to get permission from an architect to run an image of his work. Easy-peasy, right? Well, today, having stretched my deadline, I got a “no” from Allied Works Architecture, of Portland, Ore., … Continue reading →

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Architectural ‘myopia’

Posted on June 29, 2014 by David Brussat

Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros – respectively a design consultant and a mathematician/architectural theorist – wrote a piece for Guernica magazine in 2011 called “The Architect Has No Clothes.” It delves deeply into the phenomenon probed often in this blog … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments