Category Archives: Architecture History

Nod of the Royal Oak

Posted on November 27, 2014 by David Brussat

As a board member of the New England Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, I am greatly pleased to learn that the ICAA has received the 2014 Heritage Award of the Royal Oak Foundation. The Foundation is … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Conflict at the Frick

Posted on November 22, 2014 by David Brussat

  Andrew Reed, nephew of the classical revival’s late champion Henry Hope Reed, has asked me to post a petition to save the Frick Gallery from its proposed renovation. I wrote back that I was at odds with myself over … Continue reading →

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

South Street Seaputz?

Posted on November 21, 2014 by David Brussat

Why does no one seem upset that the venerable South Street Seaport, in New York City, is about to be zapped and tricked out as a squat Miesian glass box, courtesy of SHoP, one of the world’s worst architectural firms? … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Girding against the Granoffs

Posted on November 11, 2014 by David Brussat

A neighborhood meeting I had thought might blow up in anger last night instead displayed a steely determination to resist a sneaky subdivision of the Granoff estate behind a stone wall at Blackstone Boulevard and Rochambeau Avenue. Last week’s meeting … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

‘Our Vanishing Legacy’

Posted on November 2, 2014 by David Brussat

Making the revival rounds of historical organizations in New York City is a fascinating film not shown in decades. Originally released on Sept. 21, 1961, “Our Vanishing Legacy” was the first documentary promoting historic preservation in the city. This was … Continue reading →

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A landscape urbanism primer

Posted on October 28, 2014 by David Brussat

Architect Marc Szarkowski, responding to news that the so-called landscape urbanists are helping to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the famous British gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown (1716-1783), offers this chart on how to design a park from the landscape-urbanist perspective. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Humor, Landscape Architecture | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Landscape styles at war

Posted on October 24, 2014 by David Brussat

” ‘Now there’ said he, pointing his finger, ‘I make a comma, and there’ pointing to another spot, ‘where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where an interruption is desirable to break the … Continue reading →

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Column: Yes, alas, we have modernism in R.I.

Posted on October 23, 2014 by David Brussat

“God will provide,” my editor Bob Whitcomb used to say. This morning, as I struggled to find a column topic, He placed one right before my eyes, occupying the very space where my regular Thursday column in the Providence Journal … Continue reading →

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Copy the past

Posted on October 17, 2014 by David Brussat

An article shedding light on the idea of copying the past has been published in The Washington Post. “Recognizing a revival in pattern books,” by Kirstin Downey, treats the construction of houses from pattern books with examples of really nice … Continue reading →

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A Gehryesque critique

Posted on October 13, 2014 by David Brussat

This critique of the critique of the Gehry design for a memorial to Dwight Eisenhower, “An Eisenhower Impasse,” by Ned Cramer in Architect, the journal of the American Institute of Architects, is so twisted that it merits the sobriquet Gehryesque. … Continue reading →

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