Category Archives: Architecture

Ode to snow in Providence

Posted on January 27, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is a column written in anticipation of what the weatherman assured us would be on the ground in time for its publication in the Journal a week and 15 years ago today: Ode to winter in Providence A FRESH … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Blast from past, Providence | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Betsky at Taliesin . . . Duck!

Posted on January 26, 2015 by David Brussat

Amusing to hear that modern architecture’s ranter-in-chief, Aaron Betsky, has been hired as dean of the School of Architecture at Taliesin West – in Scottsdale, Ariz – where Frank Lloyd Wright spent his final years as an architectural provocateur. How … Continue reading →

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Klaustoon klaustrophobia

Posted on January 23, 2015 by David Brussat

I’ve just put Klaustoons on my “Blogs I Follow” list. Here are two, one about the Walkie-Scorchie by Rafael Viñoly, who did the Birdshitcatcher Building (the Watson Center) on Thayer Street in Providence, and the other about Rem Koolhaas. The … Continue reading →

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A few words about breasts

Posted on January 21, 2015 by David Brussat

It would be shameful if Blaine Brownell’s essay “The Disruptive Nature of Architectural Innovation” in Architect, the voice of the AIA, were the last word on disruption as a strategy of innovation in architecture. He complains that “experimentation in architecture … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kennedy Plaza reopens

Posted on January 20, 2015 by David Brussat

Kennedy Plaza reopened this morning. Bus passengers are waiting in the newly sanitized bus hub. The view above shows the blank sterility achieved by its redesign. Wind-swept vastnesses of unused space greet us now, no longer the elegant Art Nouveau … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Justin Lee Miller: Architecture and the operatic angst

Posted on January 19, 2015 by David Brussat

Justin Lee Miller, the opera singer, actor and playwright, has sent me a fascinating essay that elucidates the parallels between opera and architecture, especially in regard to the handling of traditional works by their modernist interpreters. Here is the passage … Continue reading →

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See London before the Fire

Posted on January 18, 2015 by David Brussat

Six students (of history? architecture? illustration?) have produced a 3½-minute video imagining what London before the Great Fire of 1666 must have been like. The animation is lifelike but the buildings are figments of their historical imaginations, variations of the … Continue reading →

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Potent rowhouse poetics

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

The three sets of rowhouses that I posted in “Survey: Your preferred row” a couple of days ago elicited from William Carroll Westfall among the most evocative lines I’ve read on the differences among types of architecture. He refers to … Continue reading →

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Mr. Moses’s Jones Beach

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

Since I expect that my reading of The Power Broker (1974), by Robert Caro, about Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, will summon up more to criticize than praise in its 1,162 page vastness of biography, I will begin with … Continue reading →

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

Driehaus for David Schwarz

Posted on January 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Congratulations to David Schwarz, the classical architect headquartered in Washington, D.C. I first encountered him in person on a trip to see his new concert hall in Las Vegas, and learned that he was the architect of no small number … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments