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.

Memorial news & views

George Weigel, the religious philosopher, replays the sad saga of the proposed memorial for Dwight Eisenhower in his essay “Ike Memorial No-Brainer,” from the National Review. Weigel urges Congress to dump Frank Gehry’s “Memorial To Myself” design that has already … Continue reading

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C. of C.’s new trad degree

The College of Charleston is to be congratulated for instituting the first classical program of architectural education in the South. Starting this fall, its new master of arts program in Community Planning, Policy and Design will instruct students in progressive … Continue reading

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The Huxtable joke’s on us

It may sound like an April Fool’s joke, but I recently started to read Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard? Turns out the joke’s on us. The book’s author, the late Ada Louise Huxtable, was, as most readers of this … Continue reading

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Gallagher: “If Venice Dies”

Mary Campbell Gallagher, founder of the International Coalition for the Preservation of Paris, has written a review of Salvadore Settis’s If Venice Dies for The New Criterion. Here is a direct link to her fine review, elegantly titled “La Serenissima” … Continue reading

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Postmodernist Edwardians

Kristen Richards, the founder and editor of the indispensable ArchNewsNow, sent me the other day a piece she said would interest me. Well, that was the understatement of the week. “Understanding British Postmodernism (Hint: It’s Not What You Thought),” by … Continue reading

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Rhode Island, circa 1947

Here’s a video of a nine-minute promotional film on Rhode Island, the smallest state in the union – though the state with the nation’s highest per capita production of industrial goods. The grainy black & white photography and the “professional” … Continue reading

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Adam on classical language

Robert Adam in his book Classic Columns addresses a topic many have addressed but at far greater depth of perception.  Few can fail to perceive that classical architecture is a language and that it evolves slowly just as the English … Continue reading

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Minutes in lovely Malta

When I feel like writing a post but don’t have much time I fly to YouTube and its endless city videos. Today, Valletta, the capital of Malta, the island nation just south of Sicily. I visited in the late 1990s … Continue reading

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Adam on history & tradition

I am reading British architect Robert Adam’s collection of essays, Classic Columns: 40 Years of Writing on Architecture,” just published. Chapter 5, “Can restoration be too authentic?,” totally demolishes a longstanding pet peeve of mine – modernist additions to old … Continue reading

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‘Transforming Providence’

Yesterday’s announcement of the publication date of Lost Providence brings to mind that Transforming Providence, by Gene Bunnell, a professor of city planning at SUNY/Albany, has just been published. I am pleased that he has weighed in on the redevelopment … Continue reading

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