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.

Battering Battersea Station

Owen Hatherley has denounced a large development around the historic Battersea Power Station, in London. I cannot read his piece because it is behind the paywall of The Architects’ Journal. But I do have the next best thing – its … Continue reading

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Still allowed to like Meier?

I had absolutely no idea, two weeks ago when I wrote my post “Ha ha ha ha! Seriously?,” that its two subjects, Pritzker Prize architect Richard Meier and the late female architect Natalie de Blois, are connected. No, de Blois … Continue reading

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Sledding near Dutch Emb.

With snow bearing down this evening, ready to whack New England starting early tomorrow morning, thoughts naturally turn to sledding down hills while young. Or, rather, memories of same. My friends and I used to sled at Cal Hill, behind … Continue reading

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Sources of modern silliness

Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83) wrote some of the pathbreaking works of architectural history that form the belief system of modern architecture today. The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design is one, which I am reading again for the first time in … Continue reading

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Ross Award winners of 2018

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art has just announced this year’s Arthur Ross Award laureates. Unlike the Bulfinch Awards of the New England chapter (also just announced) and other regional ICAA awards programs, which honor specific works, the ICAA’s … Continue reading

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Chinese Gordon’s Khartoum

I have just completed Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians without finding much if anything to quote about architecture beyond what I conveyed in my post “The special beauty of decay.” Strachey contemplates four Victorians – Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold … Continue reading

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The sinister self-driving car

The Atlantic has a very interesting article, “How Self-Driving Cars Will Threaten Privacy,” by Adrienne LaFrance. It actually ran a couple of years ago, and looks forward to the convenience of life with a self-driving car. The car will listen … Continue reading

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Mighty pen on Penn Station

In “Mighty Penn,” The New Criterion has a brilliant extended reflection on the idea of rebuilding Pennsylvania Station, in New York City, as it was originally designed in 1903 by Charles Follen McKim of McKim Mead & White. Many facts … Continue reading

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See ‘Lost Prov’ in Barrington

Next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., the Barrington Public Library will host what may turn out to be my final public lecture about my book, Lost Providence. Only private talks have been scheduled for now from here on out, but at … Continue reading

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Ha ha ha ha! Seriously?

Kristen Richards’s ArchNewsNow for today has several surprises. One is in an article by Beth Dunlop for American Way magazine, “Light Fantastic,” which is about the celebrated modernist architect Richard Meier. It has a line that shivered the marrow of … Continue reading

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