Tag Archives: Beauty

Do people really feel beauty?

I recently received an interesting comment from a frequent visitor to my blog. John the First, as he styles himself, quoted from my January 31 post, “Learn more about classicism,” that “Europeans are surrounded by beauty.” He wrote: I live … Continue reading

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Mandating beauty in Britain?

How thrilling to read that Great Britain’s housing ministry has just issued a proposal to bring beauty and the public more to the forefront of planning and design decisions on the Sceptered Isle. Is this a “mandate” for beauty? Certainly … Continue reading

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Going wild over beauty

Beauty is a form of Genius – is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver … Continue reading

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Comparing Italy and Britain

What makes a good society? Part of the answer is good architecture. Yet the good that is done by good architecture reaches well beyond beauty. Good architecture does much to create the conditions in which health, prosperity and happiness grow. … Continue reading

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Imagine all the buildings …

The other day, flipping through stacks of my old Providence Journal columns seeking a shot of a c. 1750 house in Providence’s old village of Hardscrabble (which I found), I came across a column inspired by a website’s image of … Continue reading

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Two fumbles in Providence

Among the eight or so new buildings erected in Providence with virtually zero opposition in the past two years are a pair that ought, by now, to have been reviewed here. And I will get to that. But first: The … Continue reading

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A mere moment of beauty

These two shots of the John Carter Brown Library on the College Green of Brown University were taken as my son Billy and I paused on College Hill, waiting for Victoria, his mother and my wife (whose birthday is today), … Continue reading

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The streets of New York

I was in New York on Monday to celebrate James Stevens Curl’s laureateship, bestowed by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s 2019 Arthur Ross Awards, at the University Club of New York, for his book Making Dystopia, now high … Continue reading

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Lovely Venice in 9 minutes

This beautiful travel video of Venice from Expedia lives up to the high standards of its tribe. The online travel booking service has dozens of fine videos of cities around the world that are so nice that they might make … Continue reading

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Seek the bottom of beauty

The headline of Joanne Ostrow’s article in the Denver Sun got my attention: “Is Denver’s contemporary architecture killing us?” Leaving aside that Denverites are not the only victims of modern architecture, the answer offered to Ostrow by the subject of … Continue reading

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