Category Archives: Architecture

No, MBS, it’s not the Pyramids

Posted on July 28, 2022 by David Brussat

Mohammed bin Salman, son of Saudi Arabia’s king and the nation’s de facto ruler, has declared that the kingdom will construct two buildings taller than the Empire State Building in a straight parallel line extending 75 miles from the Gulf … Continue reading →

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

Dodge the I-195 fooddoggle

Posted on July 25, 2022 by David Brussat

Yesterday’s Sunday Journal describes the growing dispute between Providence restaurants and the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission, which wants to use state money to finance a food pavilion in the park at the west end of the Van Leesten Memorial Pedestrian … Continue reading →

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Moholy-Nagy: Hitler’s Revenge

Posted on July 20, 2022 by David Brussat

Here, responding to an email thread on classical architecture and racism in which her essay is invoked, is my post from 2016 about Sibyl Moholy-Nagy and “Hitler’s Revenge.” She regrets that the “genius” architects who had fled Nazism inflicted modern … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History | 1 Comment

Ah, the gentle old streets!

Posted on July 16, 2022 by David Brussat

Weybosset Street, just as it curves into its merger with Westminster Street, in downtown Providence, surely is the apex of beauty in this historic city. On a fall day in 1984 I emerged for the first time from the Providence … Continue reading →

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

Mod dog lives loudly here

Posted on July 11, 2022 by David Brussat

The chapel above has just received the 25 Year Award for 2022, bestowed each year by the American Institute of Architects for the building that, according to the AIA, “sets a precedent” and “has stood the test of time for … Continue reading →

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The stupidest profession

Posted on July 6, 2022 by David Brussat

Occasionally I run across a post of mine from long ago that bears reprinting. This one from July 31, 2018,  fits that description, it seems to me, even though I have edited it to fix some badly written parts that … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

D.C.’s Union Station upgrade

Posted on June 30, 2022 by David Brussat

Last week the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the Federal Railroad Administration released images of a planned expansion of Washington’s Union Station, which sits just east of the U.S. Capitol grounds. The Beaux Arts station was designed by Chicago … Continue reading →

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The Fane tower: It’s baaack!

Posted on June 24, 2022 by David Brussat

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has ruled that the Fane tower – a proposed 500-foot, 46-story luxury highrise in the Jewelry District of Providence – can go forward toward construction. The tower’s proposed height of five times the limit in … Continue reading →

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Architectural Freemasonry

Posted on June 20, 2022 by David Brussat

I open this blog post with not a little trepidation, given the extraordinary level of disapprobation from historian James Stevens Curl for those who are not quite up to speed on or serious connoisseurs of Freemasonry, Masonic architecture, its symbolic … Continue reading →

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

Church beauty as it used to be

Posted on June 15, 2022 by David Brussat

Naturally, the beauty of churches has diminished along with the practice of religion in the West. And yet it is every day clearer and clearer that people want something to believe in, and too many end up believing in nothing, … Continue reading →

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