Category Archives: Architecture History

Stewardship at Downton

Posted on February 1, 2015 by David Brussat

Steve Lawton sent to the Practice of New Urbanism list a few choice lines about recent scenes from Downton Abbey. He notes the care with which an aristocrat addresses the proposals of a developer, circa 1922 (I think), to build … Continue reading →

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The Times eyes Charleston

Posted on January 30, 2015 by David Brussat

The ship of state is famously hard to turn. One oped criticizing modern architecture does not a candidate for membership in the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art make. The New York Times remains a stalwart of the establishment on … Continue reading →

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Parsing fraud and timidity

Posted on January 29, 2015 by David Brussat

Two examples of modern architecture in deep perspiration came across my desk today. First came Robert Ivy‘s tremulous three minutes of AIA video advice – “Hello, everyone. This is Robert” – to rattled architects, and second came Norman Weinstein‘s fraudulent … Continue reading →

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A few words about breasts

Posted on January 21, 2015 by David Brussat

It would be shameful if Blaine Brownell’s essay “The Disruptive Nature of Architectural Innovation” in Architect, the voice of the AIA, were the last word on disruption as a strategy of innovation in architecture. He complains that “experimentation in architecture … Continue reading →

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See London before the Fire

Posted on January 18, 2015 by David Brussat

Six students (of history? architecture? illustration?) have produced a 3½-minute video imagining what London before the Great Fire of 1666 must have been like. The animation is lifelike but the buildings are figments of their historical imaginations, variations of the … Continue reading →

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Mr. Moses’s Jones Beach

Posted on January 17, 2015 by David Brussat

Since I expect that my reading of The Power Broker (1974), by Robert Caro, about Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, will summon up more to criticize than praise in its 1,162 page vastness of biography, I will begin with … Continue reading →

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Film of foreign cities, c. 1920

Posted on January 15, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is an amazing series of clips filmed around 1920, apparently during the travels of a U.S. Navy fleet to various port and other cities around the world. When the sailors get out of the way (as they do quite … Continue reading →

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Milwaukee ex-mayor on 195

Posted on January 13, 2015 by David Brussat

I am gratified to post the comment of former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, who revitalized the city’s downtown in the 1990s before spending a decade, I think, as president of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Responding to my post … Continue reading →

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Film of Charleston in 1934

Posted on January 12, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is a film of Charleston, S.C., taken three years after the city passed its landmark preservation law, first of its kind in the world. Its streets today are much more as they were then than in the recently posted … Continue reading →

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Film of Chicago in 1940s

Posted on January 7, 2015 by David Brussat

Here’s a wonderful film of Chicago from the 1940s, discovered by film editor Jeff Altman at an estate sale on the South Side of the Windy City. A good portion of the film was taken from their air, courtesy of … Continue reading →

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