Category Archives: Architecture History

Copy, precedent, inspiration

Posted on March 24, 2019 by

My friend and 2019 Bulfinch Award laureate Eric Daum recently revealed in a comment to my blog post “Cranston’s Hall Free Library” that this public library, built in 1927, must have been inspired by architect Albert Kahn’s William Clements Library, … Continue reading →

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

In Waterbury, a sip of Conn.

Posted on January 24, 2019 by

Next Wednesday I’ll be visiting Waterbury, Conn., for the first time in a great many years, and even then I did not visit but passed through. For a New Englander (by choice, not by birth) I have relatively little experience … Continue reading →

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

TB blog: “Making Dystopia”

Posted on September 12, 2018 by

Here is my Traditional Building blog post from last month, shortly after I received a review copy of Making Dystopia. *** I’ve only just received a review copy of Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism, by … Continue reading →

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Corbu’s rant at Neimeyer

Posted on June 21, 2018 by

Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian architect who died in 2012 at age 104, is best known for designing Brasília, the sterile über-modernist new capital city that arose in the Brazilian outback in something like three years in the late 1950s. Its … Continue reading →

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Sources of modern silliness

Posted on March 11, 2018 by

Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83) wrote some of the pathbreaking works of architectural history that form the belief system of modern architecture today. The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design is one, which I am reading again for the first time in … Continue reading →

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Millais vs. Le Corbusier

Posted on November 5, 2017 by

Malcolm Millais, the author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, has written Le Corbusier, the Dishonest Architect, brought out in Britain by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a brave book and a necessary book, a … Continue reading →

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“Lost Prov” blasts off today

Posted on August 28, 2017 by

Today is the day my book Lost Providence goes on sale. At least a hundred people have already pre-ordered it from History Press/Arcadia Publishing, and that was as of two weeks ago. The official launch of the book will be … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Preservation, Providence | Tagged , , , , | 30 Comments

Out with the new, in with …

Posted on August 22, 2017 by

A new apartment building planned for Westminster Street outside of downtown, well beyond Route 95, is going through the design process. The Journal’s story, “5-story building gets go-ahead in Providence” describes tough going for the developer, Michael Lemoi, whose project … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Among ye olde Victorians

Posted on July 21, 2017 by

Victorian architecture, seen as the architecture of the long reign of Queen Victoria, shows the absurdity of those who claim that Victorian styles fell out of favor during the 1950s and ’60s, as many observers attest, modernist and otherwise. My … Continue reading →

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My Jane’s Walk next week

Posted on April 29, 2017 by

Jane Jacobs’s 101st birthday is coming up on Thursday, May 4, so my Jane’s Walk tour along the Providence waterfront, starting at Crawford Street Bridge near Hemenway’s, will be on Saturday, May 6. Providence’s river walks were part of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments