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.

Original green preservation

Steve Mouzon, who with his wife, Wanda, runs an architecture shop in South Beach, near Miami, has come up with an interesting new calculus for making decisions on what to preserve in cities and towns. In 2010, Mouzon wrote an … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fane theater of the absurd

Monday afternoon’s meeting of the Downtown Design Review Committee was the city’s first official look, in a public setting, at the design of Jason Fane’s proposed luxury condo tower. The meeting was pure theater of the absurd. It was as … Continue reading

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

Fight the Fane tower design

All who oppose the Fane tower should attend Monday’s meeting of the Downtown Design Review Committee at 4:45 p.m. in the city’s planning department – the modernist brick building at Westminster and Empire streets. The size of the crowd mustered … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Daum’s lovely domed chapel

The elegant classical chapel designed by the Andover, Mass., firm of Eric Inman Daum, Architect, earned a Bulfinch in the ecclesiastic category, and deservedly so. Too few buildings of any traditional character, and especially of principled classicism, are built even … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Hawthorne on architecture

My recent post “Modern or modernist?” described several nominations to replace those two words for contemporary architecture, or, more accurately, anti-traditional architecture. It did not discuss whether modernist architects would agree to use a new word chosen by classicists. I … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Salingaros on archiCULTure

Architecture today, at least establishment architecture, is not so much a profession as a cult. Call it archiculture. That fits. Nobody understands this better than Nikos Salingaros, whose thinking on cults and other subjects helped James Stevens Curl write his … Continue reading

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

Professor Curl’s victory

This year’s Arthur Ross laureates, just announced by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, honored such luminaries as Julian Fellowes, creator of and writer for the Downton Abbey series, the classical architects Jaquelin Robertson and Gil Schafer (two separate … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cameron’s Penn Sta. pitch

Richard Cameron, who spearheads the plan to have New York’s Pennsylvania Station rebuilt much as it was when it opened in 1910, pitched his proposal in Boston yesterday. Before a large audience at the Boston Design Center, he described how … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Ruggles on beauty

Beauty, Neuroscience & Architecture, by Denver architect Donald Ruggles, reflects the ancient desire to find the key to the puzzle, in this case the puzzle of architecture. Why are some buildings beautiful and others not? Find the answer and bottle … Continue reading

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

REX wrecks Brown PAC Rx

The newly released design for Brown’s proposed performing arts center by the New York firm REX, led by Rem Koolhaas OMA alumnus Joshua Prince-Ramus, can’t be accused of wrecking a swath of campus. That’s already been accomplished. But it can … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Comments