Category Archives: Architecture

The Cotton District

Posted on September 5, 2014 by David Brussat

Not sure how this place eluded my classical radar, but Starkville, Mississippi, home of Mississippi State, has a neighborhood called the Cotton District, between the downtown of the city of 23,000 and its university campus. Wikipedia calls it the nation’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Column: The mathematician vs. the modernists

Posted on September 4, 2014 by David Brussat

Science and modern architecture have gone hand in glove for decades. Buildings of steel and glass are filled with high technology to protect office space and living space from sun and climate. Hermetically sealed cartoon futurism must be scientific, right? … Continue reading →

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Glasgow fire update

Posted on September 3, 2014 by David Brussat

The good news is that in addition to money flowing in to repair the Glasgow School of Art that nearly burned down this spring, school officials seem firmly inclined to restore to the original state both the school building, most … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Preservation | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Living under bridge now

Posted on September 3, 2014 by David Brussat

Seriously, it’s not that bad, but your architectural correspondent was in fact laid off yesterday from his job at the Providence Journal. A newspaper chain recently purchased the paper. Tomorrow’s column will be my last for the Journal. I will … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Mayor Riley in Providence

Posted on August 29, 2014 by David Brussat

To celebrate my discovery of A Vision of Civic Conservation, I have resurrected a column from 2007 in which I report on the visit of Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley to Providence for the annual meeting of the Providence Preservation Society, … Continue reading →

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Capt. Hook’s Moat Brae

Posted on August 28, 2014 by David Brussat

Here are three images of the modernist plan for Moat Brae, in Dumfries, Scotland, whose garden inspired Neverland. It is now threatened with fairly typical additions in an unsympathetic style. I was unable to get my hands on these images … Continue reading →

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Three Classicists

Posted on August 27, 2014 by David Brussat

This time-lapse video, called “Three Classicists,” shows three British classicists, including Quinlan Terry’s son, sketching a classical scene on a blank wall in about three minutes, to the dear strains of a dulcet cellist. It is several years old but I … Continue reading →

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UNESCO urbanicide?

Posted on August 26, 2014 by David Brussat

DOMUS, a magazine about cities and culture, has published an infantile essay, “Urbanicide in all good faith,” excoriating UNESCO’s World Heritage program as an assassin of cities. The author, Marco D’Eramo, doesn’t call a spade a spade. Only briefly does … Continue reading →

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Hope for Emmett Square

Posted on August 26, 2014 by David Brussat

Years ago, the Miami architecture and planning firm DPZ, led by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (his wife), came to Providence again and again to help plan the revival of its downtown. Its last charrette, or brainstorming session, was in … Continue reading →

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Bad news from Paris

Posted on August 23, 2014 by David Brussat

Mary Campbell Gallagher, of SOS Paris, reports that the new mayor of Paris is working to undermine the already weakened legal stuctures that protect the beauty of the City of Light. There was a pro-beauty, anti-skyscraper candidate in the March … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments