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.

Diamant on trad in Europe

Below is a guest column by Michael Diamant, a connoisseur of architecture living in Stockholm and founder, in 2012, of the website New Traditional Architecture. He is expected to participate in the annual meeting of the Traditional Architecture Gathering set … Continue reading

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Do people really feel beauty?

I recently received an interesting comment from a frequent visitor to my blog. John the First, as he styles himself, quoted from my January 31 post, “Learn more about classicism,” that “Europeans are surrounded by beauty.” He wrote: I live … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Wrong building, wrong place

A friend just sent me William Morgan’s piece at GoLocalProv.com, published today, about the proposed Corso Building, which was approved by the city in 2019 but has recently been downsized from twelve to nine stories. I repled, “I totally agree … Continue reading

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Driehaus for Treese of Mainz

Perhaps it makes sense that Europeans have received the four of the last five Driehaus prizes. One went to a Thai. At the risk of appearing nativist, the last American laureate was the Florida architect Scott Merrill (2016). This year’s … Continue reading

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Save Lille’s Chapel St. Joseph!

The Chapelle Saint-Joseph, in Lille, situated in the northernmost tip of France, should remain standing in testimony to the beauty of France. The chapel has been abandoned by the city government. The French ministry of culture has refused to classify … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Mandating beauty in Britain?

How thrilling to read that Great Britain’s housing ministry has just issued a proposal to bring beauty and the public more to the forefront of planning and design decisions on the Sceptered Isle. Is this a “mandate” for beauty? Certainly … Continue reading

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Learn more about classicism

Alexis de Tocqueville discovered, during his visit to our country in the early 1830s, that we Americans form more associations to pursue civic goals than in Britain or, I suppose, in France, his native land, else he would not have … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Russia’s artful classicist – Da!

Historian James Stevens Curl, the author of Making Dystopia (2018), the most comprehensive critical history of modern architecture, has sent me a marvelous video of the classical work of the Russian architect Mikhail Filippov. His work has been described as … Continue reading

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Don’t trifle with this building

Opened in 1823 to a design by Thomas Hamilton, Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School has a stern and foreboding look. But surely a grin can be detected among its colonnades: It has recently dodged the bullet of redevelopment as an … Continue reading

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O’Brian’s game of composers

Having just had a capital meal of lasagna to celebrate a removal of sutures from the gap left by an extracted tooth, I am reminded of a passage I marked years ago in Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation, 1991, … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments