Category Archives: Architecture

Update on Mack restoration

Posted on November 12, 2021 by David Brussat

With bigwigs and celebs jetting away at last from Scotland’s global climate summit, what else is afoot in the city of Glasgow? The famous 1909 Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh has not been rebuilt after its near … Continue reading →

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

“Conundrum of architecture”

Posted on November 4, 2021 by David Brussat

Below is a long guest post written by Scottish architecture critic David Black, who lives in Edinburgh. Written in light of controversies in the United States over former President Trump’s effort to align the styles of federal architecture with American … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Mary Campbell Gallagher: RIP

Posted on October 29, 2021 by David Brussat

I was saddened to hear of the passage on Monday, after a year-long illness, of Mary Campbell Gallagher, a leader in the fight against skyscrapers and other modernist architecture in Paris. Mary was best known for her work as liaison … Continue reading →

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

Your “average life altitude”

Posted on October 21, 2021 by David Brussat

Several days ago I was chatting with a friend and the topic of past residences came up. I recalled a column I’d written in January 2009 for the Providence Journal in which I’d unveiled what I called my “average life … Continue reading →

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Up Fifth Avenue in early ’30s

Posted on October 17, 2021 by David Brussat

Stumbled upon this delightfully informative, well-paced, almost soporific film of Fifth Avenue, taken from the rear window of a motorcar (if they still used that word in the 1930s), at a steady pace except for stops at traffic lights. You’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Video | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Two visions of New York City

Posted on October 13, 2021 by David Brussat

Two recent panels held by the Empire Station Coalition discussed rebuilding Penn Station in its original 1910 design and growing opposition to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Empire Station Complex, which would clog the area around Penn Station with glass-box skyscrapers. … Continue reading →

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Blake on Corbu’s “furniture”

Posted on October 4, 2021 by David Brussat

Peter Blake, modernist architect, critic and (eventually) apostate, writes about “functional” modernist furniture in his book Le Corbusier: Architecture and Form (1960), which I’m reading as a sort of launching pad to his book Form Follows Fiasco (the best book … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Interior Design | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Two rotten eggs and a peach

Posted on September 29, 2021 by David Brussat

The I-195 District Redevelopment Commission, at its Sept. 20 meeting, looked at three proposals for mixed-use apartment complexes on former highway land east of the Providence River. One proposal exceeds the other two in appearance. That should be the primary … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

See how form follows fiasco

Posted on September 21, 2021 by David Brussat

I’ve just started rereading the late Peter Blake’s slender 1960 hagiography of French architect Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland. A far better book on Corbu, as he is known by his many deluded admirers, is Le Corbusier: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A lexicon of modern facades

Posted on September 17, 2021 by David Brussat

Among the many differences between modern architecture and traditional or classical architecture is that modernist buildings, which often do not look like buildings at all, receive what I call derisive monikers from members of the public. Traditional and classical design, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments