Category Archives: Architecture

Union Studio enchantment

Posted on June 4, 2014 by David Brussat

The sketch above really threw me for a loop a while back, during the evolution of the 257 Thayer St. project, when Gilbane Properties (or Development) gave the flawed original design to Union Studio Architects in downtown Providence. I visited … Continue reading →

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Gilbane politely objects

Posted on June 3, 2014 by David Brussat

Robert V. Gilbane of Gilbane Properties is developer of residential apartments at 257 Thayer St., a new building that replaces nine old houses, which are gone. Construction has begun on the building. Bob objected to my portrayal, in last week’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Providence | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Henry Hope Reed live!

Posted on June 2, 2014 by David Brussat

Henry Hope Reed, who passed away last year, spoke to an audience a decade ago about the architecture of the U.S. Capitol at the National Building Museum in 2004, just before the publication of his excellent book on that building. … Continue reading →

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Koolhaas’s biennale

Posted on June 2, 2014 by David Brussat

Rem Koolhaas is director of the latest Venice Biennale of Architecture, the big cheese of international architectural exhibitions, which begins on Saturday, June 7. Predictably differentiating himself from his ridiculous predecessors by using the biennale to do something intelligent, he … Continue reading →

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Romancing the Post Office

Posted on May 31, 2014 by David Brussat

The New York Times reports the finalization of Donald Trump’s agreement to renovate the old U.S. Post Office Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., as a hotel. This is one of my favorite buildings and I’m glad to hear … Continue reading →

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Mackintosh fire update

Posted on May 29, 2014 by David Brussat

The conversation in Glasgow about how to restore the school and its library has moved into a phase that pits faithful restorers against reinterpretive restorers, who presumably would want to apply their own aesthetic tics in fiddling with the work … Continue reading →

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Blast from past: Fogarty

Posted on May 29, 2014 by David Brussat

Today’s column involves a plan to place an extraordinarily bland extended-stay hotel (luxury, of course, and well “branded,” on the site of the Brutalist Fogarty Building, which would be torn down. Haven’t we been here before? Yes, we have! Not … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Blast from past, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t just shrug off horrid hotel plan

Posted on May 29, 2014 by David Brussat

What’s that word these days that articulates a shrug of the shoulders? Meh. The day after Memorial Day, The Journal reported a proposed 170-room “premium-branded upscale extended-stay” hotel for Fountain Street, in downtown Providence. To be razed was the Fogarty … Continue reading →

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Providence Opera House

Posted on May 28, 2014 by David Brussat

I had the pleasure of foisting my viewpoint upon a captive audience at a recent meeting of the Providence Netopian Club. For the uninitiated, which is surely almost everyone, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, the father of religious (or “soul”) … Continue reading →

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Mackintosh’s ‘modernism’

Posted on May 27, 2014 by David Brussat

The idea of Charles Rennie Mackintosh as an early modernist may seem absurd to those familiar with his work, but a few passages in one of his lectures are surely what has given rise to such an idea. Thought to … Continue reading →

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