Tag Archives: art

Kingsley Amis bags a statue

Posted on August 12, 2015 by David Brussat

The late Kingsley Amis wrote The Old Devils (1988) about a community of old art farts in Wales when one of their old school chums, “media Welshman” Alun Weaver, decides to end his long successful literary career in London and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cellini: Pearls before duchess

Posted on June 30, 2015 by David Brussat

In the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572) he discusses fighting and money a lot. Designing the settings for jewelry – his craft as a goldsmith and sometime sculptor – is the topic to which, after fighting and money, he has … Continue reading →

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

Style in words and buildings

Posted on May 9, 2015 by David Brussat

Andres Duany in his treatise Heterodoxia Architectonica engages the concept of classicism’s relation to language. Umberto Eco, in his On Literature, engages the concept of language’s relation to style. This blog is about the “style wars” of classicism versus modernism. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Preservation hits the bottom

Posted on May 8, 2015 by David Brussat

The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission has almost hit rock bottom. It has approved a restoration project that preserves a building – and its graffiti. The website New York YIMBY reports the ruling in “Landmarks Approves Restoration and Conversion of … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Development, Humor, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Why is modern art so bad?

Posted on May 8, 2015 by David Brussat

Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture and an upcoming book correcting the record on Le Corbusier, sent me a video of an artist, Robert Florczak, at Prager University, explaining the erosion of standards in the art world … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Humor, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Monkey with a T-square?

Posted on April 7, 2015 by David Brussat

“Hetero or not?” and “Is this classical?” are parlor games played by members of the TradArch list, the online discussion group for classical architects. Will classicists find a particular building “canonical” or outside of the canon? Recently, a thread of … Continue reading →

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

In defense of AutoCAD!

Posted on April 2, 2015 by David Brussat

My post on CAD – which I wish I’d called “CAD or cad?” – has drawn some comment on TradArch from the technique’s defenders. Among the most eloquent and entertaining is Nathaniel Walker’s assertion that computer aided design is just … Continue reading →

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

Latest on Macintosh rebuild

Posted on March 31, 2015 by David Brussat

An experienced Glasgow firm, Page/Park, has been chosen in a competition to restore and renovate the burned masterpiece of Scotland’s great architect Charles Rennie Macintosh – the Glasgow School of Art and its Macintosh Library. The Guardian’s story runs under … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Other countries | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More modernist parents stuff

Posted on March 4, 2015 by David Brussat

Prof. Jan Michl, of Oslo, saw my post “My Modernist Parents,” with its trailers of a short Norwegian animated film Me and My Moulton, which was up for an Oscar this year for portraying the trials and tribulations of being … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Art and design, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sketching my mom of moms

Posted on February 28, 2015 by David Brussat

Here’s the column I wrote in 2004 about the annual meeting in Providence of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators. I was going to write it mainly about the work of a sort of sketchy illustrator from San Francisco in … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Blast from past, Books and Culture, Providence, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments