Category Archives: Art and design

To be cont’d in Charleston

Posted on March 11, 2015 by David Brussat

Beach Company, which had submitted what I thought was an elegant proposal to replace a midcentury modernist clunker of an apartment tower with three shorter but larger mostly residential buildings of seemingly high design on the edge of Charleston’s historic … Continue reading →

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An attitude, not a material

Posted on March 9, 2015 by David Brussat

Patrick Webb, of the American College of the Building Arts, in Charleston, delighted the TradArch list today with examples from Saint Augustine, Fla., of concrete used without brutality. They are the Hotel Acazar, above, and Grace Metodist Church, below to … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The architecture of dessert

Posted on March 7, 2015 by David Brussat

The resurgence of interest in Nathaniel Robert Walker’s essay on food and architecture, called “Architecture and food,” which ran here on Jan. 8, and the host of comments and, it seems, new followers of my blog it has inspired, has … Continue reading →

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Cret’s wandering WWI shaft

Posted on March 6, 2015 by David Brussat

Warren Lutzel has kindly sent me a portrait of architect Paul Philippe Cret’s monument originally erected in 1929 at Providence’s Memorial Square to commemorate World War I. The square looks almost bucolic in the painting above but in time grew … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

More modernist parents stuff

Posted on March 4, 2015 by David Brussat

Prof. Jan Michl, of Oslo, saw my post “My Modernist Parents,” with its trailers of a short Norwegian animated film Me and My Moulton, which was up for an Oscar this year for portraying the trials and tribulations of being … Continue reading →

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Sketching my mom of moms

Posted on February 28, 2015 by David Brussat

Here’s the column I wrote in 2004 about the annual meeting in Providence of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators. I was going to write it mainly about the work of a sort of sketchy illustrator from San Francisco in … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Blast from past, Books and Culture, Providence, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Polemicists in pen and ink

Posted on February 28, 2015 by David Brussat

Someone recently twitted me for displaying on my blog beautiful drawings of a proposed new Boston City Hall designed (and illustrated) by Aaron Helfand. My correspondent said the building might not look as nice as the drawing when it is … Continue reading →

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“My Modernist Parents”

Posted on February 27, 2015 by David Brussat

What would it be like as a 7-year-old to have “modernist architects” for parents? The film Me and My Moulton answers that question. Inspired by director Torill Kove’s growing up in Norway under the roof of such a species, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Book/Film Reviews, Humor | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Edges, shapes and patterns!

Posted on February 25, 2015 by David Brussat

Edges, patterns and shapes affect our perception of the built environment through the millennia worth of knowledge accumulated by our brain about our world. Only 70,000 years from the savannah and, as Ann Sussman put it last night, “your subconscious … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

PawSox to Providence?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by David Brussat

There once was a team in Pawtucket. To consider the merits of moving the Boston Red Sox Triple-A team to Providence, one must first swallow the vile pill of stealing the team from neighboring Pawtucket, which needs economic stimulus more … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments