Category Archives: Development

Last wooden bridge in Prov.

Posted on March 30, 2015 by David Brussat

In an excellent online post for the Providence Journal, photographer Sandor Bodo notes the demise and, more recently, the removal of the last wooden river bridge in Providence. It is called “Documenting the fall of Providence’s last wooden river bridge,” … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Book/Film Reviews, Development, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The secret lives of scalies

Posted on March 26, 2015 by David Brussat

Scalies, according to Alissa Walker’s excellent report on an exhibit out in Berkeley, “The Secret Lives of Little People in Architectural Renderings,” are the little people in architectural renderings. That’s the term used by professionals. Scalies. They are mainly there … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development, Humor, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Heidi’s chilly new neighbor

Posted on March 26, 2015 by David Brussat

Kudos to Gizmodo.com not just for the inspired montage above but to its correspondent Alissa Walker, who reports that starchitect Thom Mayne has announced an evaporating glass slab for poor Vals, Switz. At 80 stories and 1,250 feet in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Houses by George & Andrew

Posted on March 22, 2015 by David Brussat

This website of houses, new and restored, and other work by Andrew Gould and George Holt, mostly in Charleston, including some remarkably tiny ones, cannot be resisted. See if you can examine the shots of each house in turn and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Landmark the neighbors

Posted on March 19, 2015 by David Brussat

Many Providence residents live on beautiful streets lined with houses built before ugly architecture became almost mandatory. Few neighborhoods are dominated by midcentury modern houses, although some jackanapes might even argue that they qualify as historic. Historic, perhaps, if the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Preservation, Providence, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dump on Seagram Building

Posted on March 17, 2015 by David Brussat

Martin Pedersen, the critic and former Metropolis editor who co-wrote a blistering attack on modernism in the New York Times last December, has loosed an excellent fusillade against the Seagram Building, completed in 1958. Writing in the Fast Company blog, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What monuments tell us

Posted on March 15, 2015 by David Brussat

Recently, as museums to remember the stain of slavery in America are under construction in Washington and planned in Charleston, there has arisen the vital question of whether memorials should speak in a traditional language everyone can understand or a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

New apartments downtown!

Posted on March 11, 2015 by David Brussat

Monday evening’s meeting of the Downtown Design Review Committee relieved concerns that one must feel upon news that a graceful old building is being renovated. Who knows what evil could be afoot. But the applicant, HM Ventures 7, of Brooklyn, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Photography, Preservation, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

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 →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

New Urbanism’s easy choice

Posted on March 8, 2015 by David Brussat

It is often said that New Urbanism is “agnostic” as to style. Even the charter of the Congress for the New Urbanism says so. Rob Steuteville, who edits the urbanist journal Better Cities & Towns, has written an essay, The … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments