Category Archives: Architecture

Pritzker’s 2017 yawn x 3

Posted on March 2, 2017 by David Brussat

The Pritzker Prize for 2017 was just announced, and while it feels good to continue to celebrate the prize jury’s now years-long retreat from rewarding starchitects, the multitude of excuses offered for the Spanish (or perhaps the Catalonian) trio’s prize … Continue reading →

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Sussman on Corbu’s autism

Posted on March 1, 2017 by David Brussat

One reason people prefer traditional to modern architecture is that their eyes literally refuse to look at blank walls. Shown a picture of a building with a blank wall, the eye of an observer will linger anywhere – on a … Continue reading →

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Cement plant for living in

Posted on February 28, 2017 by David Brussat

Ricardo Bofill has long been known for bombastic and gargantuan pseudoclassicism – his take on postmodernism’s ironic dismissal of the classical orders and traditional ornament. In 1973, the Spanish architect purchased an old abandoned cement plant near Barcelona, and has … Continue reading →

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Behold the GPS landscape

Posted on February 27, 2017 by David Brussat

In his recent essay in New York Magazine, “I Used to be a Human Being,” on how social media almost killed him, Andrew Sullivan wrote: Our oldest human skills atrophy. GPS, for example, is a godsend for finding our way … Continue reading →

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Corbusier’s nasty drivel

Posted on February 25, 2017 by David Brussat

Anthony Daniels wrote in 2015 a masterful defenestration of modern architecture’s chief founder, “The Cult of Le Corbusier,” for Quadrant, an Australian magazine. I offer this one quote, along with my assurance that the essay in its entirety will comfort … Continue reading →

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Milwaukee trigger warning

Posted on February 23, 2017 by David Brussat

The building pictured in the renderings above was proposed for downtown Milwaukee last year. The Hammes Co. real estate firm expects to move from its current site in the suburbs. The design ran into a buzzsaw of opposition. Members of … Continue reading →

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A Jane Jacobs cornucopia

Posted on February 22, 2017 by David Brussat

Here is an excellent review of recent books published by and about Jane Jacobs in the past year, which was the centennial of her birth. “What Jane Jacobs Saw,” by Michael Lewis in the upcoming March issue of First Things, … Continue reading →

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Tour Providence by the book

Posted on February 21, 2017 by David Brussat

Tomorrow a bunch of us know-it-alls have been invited to the Providence Preservation Society for a private session to suggest changes for a second edition of PPS’s 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture, written by Mack Woodward and photographed by Warren … Continue reading →

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A Kunstlerfest in Chicago

Posted on February 20, 2017 by David Brussat

James Howard Kunstler’s magisterial book The Geography of Nowhere lays waste to the ideas that laid waste to America, but his thoughts on suburbia – crudscape and all that – come after the book’s “opening monologue” about the history of … Continue reading →

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Is this possible anymore?

Posted on February 19, 2017 by David Brussat

Above is a photo of a town, Sémur-en-Auxois, in the Côte-d’Or, a department of northeastern France. Below is Sarlat-la-Canéda, in the Dordogne, another deparment, in the northeast. They are both beautiful, and it makes sense to wonder whether there is … Continue reading →

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