Category Archives: Preservation

While Our Lady is restored

Posted on May 14, 2019 by

The as yet officially unannounced international design competition on how to repair Notre-Dame de Paris after her extensive damage by fire has already spawned a number of predictably ridiculous proposals. One would replace the roof with a swimming pool intended, … Continue reading →

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How to rebuild Notre-Dame

Posted on May 1, 2019 by

Right out of the box, France announced an international competition to determine whether and how to rebuild the roof and spire of Notre-Dame, destroyed by fire on April 15. French President Emmanuel Macron wants the job done by 2024, in … Continue reading →

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Spirit of Benefit Street

Posted on April 24, 2019 by

By happenstance, much of my yesterday was spent on or near Benefit Street, long known as Providence’s Mile of History. The intersection of Benefit and College streets must be among the most beautiful in the history of the world, to … Continue reading →

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Flèche of Viollet-le-Duc

Posted on April 21, 2019 by

The lost spire of Notre-Dame must be rebuilt, but how? An international design competition has been announced to decide how to rebuild it, whether as it was or as “adapted to techniques and challenges of our times.” These last are … Continue reading →

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Notre Dame redivivus?

Posted on April 16, 2019 by

Notre Dame lives! Monday was pure concentrated stress and sadness – the horror! – watching the spire teeter and fall, then seeing the fire creep along what remained of the roof toward the betowered west façade, and then, as flames … Continue reading →

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Original green preservation

Posted on March 14, 2019 by

Steve Mouzon, who with his wife, Wanda, runs an architecture shop in South Beach, near Miami, has come up with an interesting new calculus for making decisions on what to preserve in cities and towns. In 2010, Mouzon wrote an … Continue reading →

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In Waterbury, a sip of Conn.

Posted on January 24, 2019 by

Next Wednesday I’ll be visiting Waterbury, Conn., for the first time in a great many years, and even then I did not visit but passed through. For a New Englander (by choice, not by birth) I have relatively little experience … Continue reading →

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Preservation bombshell!

Posted on January 23, 2019 by

In a very interesting article in the February issue of East Side Monthly (not yet up on its website) about Providence Preservation Society director Brent Runyon, titled “The Preserver,” staff writer Robert Isenberg elicits from the great director this description … Continue reading →

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Kansas City vs. New England

Posted on January 20, 2019 by

Today, Kansas City, Mo., hosts the New England Patriots in their battle with the Kansas City Chiefs for the championship of the American Football Conference, at 6:40 p.m., and the right to represent the AFC (N.E. for the third time … Continue reading →

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‘A future, or just history’?

Posted on January 14, 2019 by

A Sunday Globe story, “A Future, or Just History,” about Boston caught my eye. I was arrested by the headline, whose kicker and subhead only added insult to injury: “Trapped in Time” and “No, Faneuil Hall isn’t ‘Boston’ anymore. But … Continue reading →

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