Tag Archives: Ancient Ruins

Chicken, egg, preservation

Posted on April 15, 2018 by David Brussat

Steven Semes is head of the new master’s program in historic preservation in the School of Architecture at Notre Dame, about which I wrote last year in “Preservation at Notre Dame.” Semes writes in the latest issue of Traditional Building … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Roman Forum, live, at night

Posted on March 23, 2018 by David Brussat

Above is how the Roman Forum might look at night today if it had never degenerated into ruins since the empire, or if it had been reconstructed as it was at the apogee of its ancient fame. The work, by … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The special beauty of decay

Posted on February 26, 2018 by David Brussat

I’ve been trying to decide whether to post the only passage I thought worth quoting from the section on Cardinal Manning in Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, recently read by your peripatetic couch-potato. When I discovered it was not a quote … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Henry James’s Roman ruins

Posted on October 21, 2016 by David Brussat

As we saw in his novel The Princess Casamassima, Henry James indulges himself in his descriptions of cities. In Daisy Miller, he describes the ruin of the Palace of the Caesars, and the Colosseum, in Rome: A few days after … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Glide through Angkor Wat

Posted on February 28, 2016 by David Brussat

The website Kuriositas has a five-minute film of Angkor Wat, the Hindu-turned-Buddhist temple ruins in Cambodia. Filmmaker Tyler Fairbank, based in New York, shot the film using glidecam technology. The ruins seen in “The Temples of Angkor” and originally built … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Other countries, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ancient Hatra, Iraq, at risk

Posted on March 7, 2015 by David Brussat

It is hardly to be believed that the ancient Parthian city of Hatra, more than 2,000 years old, in Iraq, is being demolished by ISIS. Nimrud, older still, was just bulldozed. Recently I wrote of the curious forces destroying ancient … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Books and Culture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments