Category Archives: Art and design

Column: The Dean and The Sportsman

Posted on April 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Word in 2012 that the Sportsman’s Inn, on Fountain Street in downtown Providence, half a block from The Journal, was to become a boutique hotel was not altogether welcome. The likelihood of a cheesy, hip-wannabe hotel with a gauche modernist … Continue reading →

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

Beauty and the river

Posted on April 9, 2014 by David Brussat

This lovely photo appeared in today’s Journal, taken by staff photographer Bob Breidenbach. It shows a reflection in the Woonasquatucket River of the Waterplace Luxury Condominiums as a class of touring students strolls the riverwalk at left, passing from beneath the gently arched Exchange Street … Continue reading →

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More from “Wolf Hall”

Posted on April 8, 2014 by David Brussat

  Here’s another passage from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the pageant of Anne Boleyn’s investiture as Henry VIII’s queen: And looking down on them, those other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city’s uncounted population of stone … Continue reading →

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SF rejects free museum

Posted on April 6, 2014 by David Brussat

John King, the architecture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, occasionally displays reasonable judgment, which is considerably more often than most architecture critics. But in his piece for Metropolis defending the city’s rejection of a free, $700 million museum to be … Continue reading →

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Taki’s take on New York

Posted on April 5, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a piece from The Spectator (of Britain) by Taki, the London socialite of Greek extraction who has written the magazine’s “High Life” column since 1977. In this essay he ruminates filmographically about New York and how it has … Continue reading →

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Is beauty conservative?

Posted on March 30, 2014 by David Brussat

No. Certainly not in the political sense. Beauty, by which I mean architectural beauty in traditional and classical design, is as alluring to liberals as it is to conservatives. Because political conservatives have been more skeptical of modern architecture and … Continue reading →

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Among the Tudors

Posted on March 29, 2014 by David Brussat

My oldest and dearest friend from growing up in D.C. recently urged me most vociferously to read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, published in 2009. It is the story of the years leading up to Henry VIII’s battle with Rome over … Continue reading →

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A new stage for Emerson College

Posted on March 29, 2014 by David Brussat

I spent a year in Boston at Emerson College in 1973-74 when it was still on Beacon Street. After I left Boston I heard that Emerson was planning to move out to the suburbs, or rather to Lawrence, Mass. Then, … Continue reading →

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Vote: “Happy” or “Stayin’ Alive”

Posted on March 22, 2014 by David Brussat

The American Institute of Architects has announced its basic lack of seriousness as an organization by announcing that the artist who recorded “Happy” will be the keynote speaker for its upcoming convention. Now, I just watched/listened to “Happy” for the … Continue reading →

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Column: The secret to making great streets

Posted on March 20, 2014 by David Brussat

The secret to great streets is that there is no secret, that great streets were once the norm, that making them is easy, and that we can have them again, even in America, if we want them. This is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Book/Film Reviews, Other countries, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment