Category Archives: Book/Film Reviews

Parthenon’s “Deep Frieze”

Posted on April 25, 2014 by David Brussat

Daniel Mendelsohn’s essay about the Parthenon (and what the Parthenon “means”) in the April 14 issue of The New Yorker made a deft grab for my heart. Ever since I demonstrated my ability, in grade school, to sit and listen … 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

Cinematic paradise isles

Posted on March 11, 2014 by David Brussat

Financial Times architecture critic Edwin Heathcote offers readers a delightful romp island hopping down the halls of film history. Not every island paradise is paradise island, as you shall see. My own fascination with the architecture of evil in celloid … Continue reading →

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Column: An elegant guide to Brown’s campus

Posted on March 6, 2014 by David Brussat

This week marks 250 years since the General Assembly passed a charter to found Rhode Island College, as it was first called, in the town of Warren, where it was first located. With a change of place in 1770 and … Continue reading →

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Column: “The Rise and Fall of Penn Station”

Posted on February 13, 2014 by David Brussat

Before Pennsylvania Station opened in 1910, travelers headed for New York on the Pennsylvania Railroad, owned by the largest company in the world, had to debark in New Jersey and cross the Hudson River by ferry to Manhattan. It’s hard … Continue reading →

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Past blast: Video homage to Penn Station

Posted on February 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Tonight I watched a PBS “The American Experience” presentation on the rise and fall of Pennsylvania Station, which I will preview for Thursday’s column and which will broadcast to the public next Tuesday. To gin readers up for that, enter … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Blast from past, Book/Film Reviews, Old Video, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Sneaky review of “The Monster-Builder”

Posted on February 6, 2014 by David Brussat

Now that the play “The Monster-Builder,” by Amy Freed, has opened – indeed premiered – at the Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, Ore., here is a theater review. The writer, Richard Wattenberg, is not identified other than as, I presume, … Continue reading →

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“The Monster-Builder” – the trailer

Posted on February 2, 2014 by David Brussat

Nikos Salingaros, the University of Texas mathematician and architectural theorist whose thought has influenced Amy Freed – the playwright who wrote “The Monster-Builder” – has sent me a trailer of the play now being performed at the Artists Repertory Theatre … Continue reading →

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Column: Architecture critic, heal thyself!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by David Brussat

Witold Rybczynski’s 18th book, “How Architecture Works: A Humanist’s Toolkit,” opens with a quarrel in its title. By any definition of humanism, architecture has been broken for at least seven decades. The book, published in October by Farrar, Straus and … Continue reading →

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Review of “The Monster-Builder”

Posted on January 29, 2014 by David Brussat

Michael Mehaffy, of Portland, Ore., and the TradArch list, sends this review from The Oregonian of the new play at the Artists Repertory Theatre there by Stanford University’s playwright-in-residence, Amy Freed. Michael pulls out this interesting quote from the review: … Continue reading →

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