Category Archives: Art and design

Style vs. form balderdash

Posted on September 7, 2015 by David Brussat

Justin Shubow, the provocative head of the National Civic Art Society, has posted a segment from a 1996 book review by the late Paul Malo of Roger Scruton’s The Classical Vernacular: Architecture in a Time of Nihilism, which I recently … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

First critique in Pawtucket

Posted on September 6, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is one of my earliest columns about a design competition, in this case to renovate an old department store into a visitors center for the City of Pawtucket. *** Promoting a Peerless Pawtucket December 4, 1992 IN PAWTUCKET, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Preservation, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A day at the dragon races!

Posted on September 6, 2015 by David Brussat

For three years running we had just missed the dragon-boat races at the annual Pawtucket Arts Festival. This year we made it, and boy did we have fun! We saw contestants slam their cheeks pink in a watermelon-face-splat contest. We … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Google belly flops logo test

Posted on September 5, 2015 by David Brussat

Andres Duany asked TradArch listers why they “hate” Google’s new logo, assuming that most list members consider it to have been a bad move. I do not hate it. A logo change is not worthy of hatred. I dislike it, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Inside Kyla Coburn’s Prov

Posted on September 4, 2015 by David Brussat

Anyone who writes for a living regrets that certain topics escape him, that he fails, with no good excuse, to write about them. For me, one is the Central Falls interior designer Kyla Coburn (Kyla Coburn Designs). I’ve been familiar … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Providence | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Betsky bags Times Square

Posted on September 3, 2015 by David Brussat

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has stirred a crisis by suggesting that he might remove the seating from Times Square and give it back to automotive traffic. The problem is that ladies with the breasts painted fabulous colors parade … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Carbuncle Cup conundrum

Posted on September 2, 2015 by David Brussat

In Britain the Carbuncle Cup goes to the ugliest building of the year. The name recalls Prince Charles’s famous and much-beloved line, “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-beloved and elegant friend,” that he applied to a proposed … Continue reading →

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Artful restraint in Hartford

Posted on September 1, 2015 by David Brussat

This New York Times headline – “A New Look for the Wadsworth Atheneum” – had my neck hairs leaping to attention when I saw it in Paul Ranogajek’s email to the TradArch list yesterday. (Hats off to him!) A “new … Continue reading →

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The Salon des Refuses

Posted on August 30, 2015 by David Brussat

The topic has come up of a “Salon des refusés” for the classical entries that did not make it into the first two rounds of the competition for a national memorial to World War I. More than 350 entries were … Continue reading →

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Catesby Leigh’s WWI faves

Posted on August 29, 2015 by David Brussat

The Washington critic Catesby Leigh has an excellent write-up of the World War I memorial designs in the National Review, “National World War I Memorial: The Judges Got It Wrong.” He mentions two proposals that were entered but for various … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment