Category Archives: Preservation

Breuer Whitney/Met Breuer

Posted on March 18, 2016 by David Brussat

The Met Breuer opened today. It is the Brutalist building that the Whitney Museum of American Art left before moving last year into a building designed for it by Renzo Piano in New York’s Meatpacking District. The Metropolitan Museum of … Continue reading →

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

Gird Penn Station’s rebuild

Posted on March 17, 2016 by David Brussat

Connecticut architect Duo Dickinson, who writes regularly on architecture, often critical of modernism, has just written “Sprinting to the Past” in Common/Edge. He rails against Brooklyn architect Richard Cameron’s proposal to rebuild Penn Station as Charles Follen McKim designed it in … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Fallen Rome, fallen moderns

Posted on March 8, 2016 by David Brussat

Passages from Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern evoke a Rome in the 15th century fallen from its imperial glory: The population of Rome, a small fragment of what it had once been, lived in detached settlements, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Landscape Architecture, Other countries, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Archaeology at Penn Station

Posted on March 4, 2016 by David Brussat

The website Untapped Cities has apparently been sending people out (or at least receiving reports from disparate individuals and then signing them up) to find parts of the old and beloved Penn Station in the bowels of the new and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development, Interior Design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Craco, abandoned in 1963

Posted on March 3, 2016 by David Brussat

This haunting film depicts Craco, Italy, abandoned in 1963 after landslides rendered it uninhabitable. Ancient ruins are, well, ancient ruins, and their mysteries pull on different chords of our hearts. Craco is a city – granted, an ancient one – … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Froma Harrop: Don’t bury our cities in megatowers

Posted on March 2, 2016 by David Brussat

An excellent rattling of sabres at megatowers was published in Sunday’s Providence Journal by Froma Harrop, my former colleague on the paper’s editorial board. Froma writes a twice-weekly syndicated column for Creators Syndicate on the full panoply of issues in … Continue reading →

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

Buildings that kill people

Posted on March 1, 2016 by David Brussat

I didn’t want to be the first to say this. Thankfully now Lance Hosey, chief sustainability officer and a principal of the design firm Perkins Eastman, has written “Buildings That Kill.” His piece ran yesterday on CommonEdge.org. He is identified … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Slice of Camelot lost to fire

Posted on February 29, 2016 by David Brussat

Last Thursday, Newport’s famous Bellevue Avenue lost its Stoner Lodge, across from Château-sur-Mer, to a fire probably caused by an accident resulting from its ongoing extensive renovation. The lodge was sold by the daughter of socialite Noreen Drexel in 2012. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Nice public comfort stations

Posted on February 27, 2016 by David Brussat

Paris always had great places to take a leak. New York’s public restrooms at Bryant Park, outside of the New York Public Library, also astonish us (today) that so much effort was made to celebrate the accomplishment of our most … Continue reading →

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

Renovating Castle Lyndon

Posted on February 23, 2016 by David Brussat

Here is a set of passages from William Makepeace Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon, which I am reading for the first time after seeing the movie, directed by Stanley Kubrick in a sort of cinematic slo-mo. The novel is an extended exercise … Continue reading →

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