Category Archives: Architecture

Video of the modernist city

Posted on July 25, 2016 by David Brussat

Here, courtesy of the website Kuriositas, is the city of modern architecture’s secret desire. The video of this imagined place is called “Spacial Bodies,” by AUJIK.  As described by Kuriositas, it “depicts the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an … Continue reading →

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“Strikingly modern” house?

Posted on July 23, 2016 by David Brussat

On Saturdays, when the “House of the Week” beckons in the Providence Journal, my wife and I guess its asking price. Victoria is usually closer. This week, the house at 346 Claypool Dr., an appealing traditional house built in 2007 … Continue reading →

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Pollan deconstructs design

Posted on July 22, 2016 by David Brussat

Michael Pollan’s A Place of My Own (1997) is the story of how a successful author of well-known books on food tries to free himself from the grip words had on his life by building a cabin for himself by … Continue reading →

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Work on new Yale campus

Posted on July 21, 2016 by David Brussat

After driving down to attend the Palladio Awards at the New Haven Lawn Club on Wednesday afternoon (alas, the wrong day), I offered myself the compensatory pleasure of viewing construction well under way at Yale’s new campus quads, designed by Robert … Continue reading →

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Dicey dioramas of ruin porn

Posted on July 20, 2016 by David Brussat

Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber have fashioned what might be described as apocalypic dollhouses to create an end-of-the-world sensibility. The result, from an article in Architizer titled “The Beauty of Decay: These Stunning Dioramas Depict Perfect Post-Apocalyptic Architecture,” brings to … Continue reading →

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1 man, 53 years, 1 cathedral

Posted on July 18, 2016 by David Brussat

Watch this brief video about a man in his 90s who has spent 53 years building a cathedral near Madrid by hand – solely his own. Not sure what I think of the cathedral’s design. There seem clear references, at … Continue reading →

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A French city, razed, rebuilt

Posted on July 17, 2016 by David Brussat

We are still angry and sad about Nice, but let me shift the spotlight to another ancient French resort city, St.-Malo, on the Brittany coast of the English Channel. As I say, an ancient city, but it was shelled and … Continue reading →

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Doodles a la Oppenord

Posted on July 13, 2016 by David Brussat

The sketchbook of G.M. Oppenord is offered by architect Joel Pidel, from his library. Joel throws it out for the pleasure of fellow TradArch list members, and someone ill prepared, as I am, to analyze the work between its covers … Continue reading →

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Less is more … or a bore?

Posted on July 5, 2016 by David Brussat

Happy belated birthday (it was June 24) to Robert Venturi, avatar of the postmodern movement in architecture and the self-appointed rebutter-in-chief to arch-modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his infamous dictum. In the battle of slogans, “Less is more” … Continue reading →

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Independence architecture

Posted on July 4, 2016 by David Brussat

The classicism of the Jefferson Memorial, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, a design beloved of Jefferson, is by John Russell Pope and was dedicated in 1943, during the Second World War. The monument’s classicism was pecked at by modernist … Continue reading →

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