Category Archives: Books and Culture

Your best lost building here!

Posted on November 17, 2015 by David Brussat

The other day I received an email from Edward Mack, an editor at The History Press, an imprint of Arcadia Publishing. You all know their books. The regional literature shelves of your local bookstore are struggling even now under the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Blast from past, Books and Culture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Paris strong, Paris beautiful

Posted on November 14, 2015 by David Brussat

Very little suggests itself to me in reply to last night’s evil events in Paris except to assert, a year after the Charlie Hebdo attack, that America still has France’s back. America is next. It becomes deadly clear that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Other countries, Photography, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Shostakovich in Leningrad

Posted on November 13, 2015 by David Brussat

I just read a passage so astonishing about Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (“The Leningrad Symphony”) that I must pass it along. It is about how the Soviets got a score for the newly written music to Leningrad during the siege. … Continue reading →

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Dorothy in “Renderland”

Posted on November 9, 2015 by David Brussat

Given the apparent difficulty architects have designing places that improve rather than undermine their settings, I was amused at the crie de coeur from art critic Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the figures – known in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

“Lost in a Good Book”

Posted on November 4, 2015 by David Brussat

To illustrate the generally ecumenical theme of this blog, I will quote a few passages from Lost in a Good Book, a sci-fi comic thriller by Jasper Fforde, in which heroine Thursday Next, a literary detective who can jump in … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Misconstruing “starchitect”

Posted on November 3, 2015 by David Brussat

Kriston Capps’s piece for CityLab, “Leave Starchitects Alone,” is filled with so much hooey that I am embarrassed to be inflicting it on my readers. It is part of the continuing effort to tar opposition to modern architecture as partisan … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

My haunted reading list

Posted on November 2, 2015 by David Brussat

Two days after Halloween and and two days before the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt on Wednesday*, my reading list runneth over with coincidence. Apropos of nothing to do with this blog about architecture – hence the castle … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fie on a million years!

Posted on October 18, 2015 by David Brussat

For his latest piece in CityLab, “Making the Case for Symmetrical Cities,” peripatetic architecture critic Anthony Flint, housed at the Lincoln Institute in Cambridge, does a very nice job adding up the evidence for the superiority of classical and traditional … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Gaming the Renaissance

Posted on October 8, 2015 by David Brussat

A fascinating interview in ArchDaily of Colombian architectural historian Maria Elisa Navarro, of McGill University, who advised creators of the video game “Assassin’s Creed II,” opens up new vistas for the classical revival. Millions of young people play these video … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Books and Culture, Development, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Authenticity in placemaking

Posted on October 7, 2015 by David Brussat

As part of its 30th anniversary celebration, the Providence arts collaborative AS220 gathered several expert “placemakers” under the deep atrium sky of the Callendar, McAuslan & Troup Building (1873, 1892). Called the Peerless Building now after the last in a … Continue reading →

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