Tag Archives: Calder Loth

Aborting Menokin’s legacy

Posted on June 18, 2020 by David Brussat

Menokin House, near Warsaw, Va., was built in 1769 by Francis Lightfoot Lee, who received the plantation’s land as a wedding gift. He was the brother of Gen. Lightfoot Harry Lee of Revolutionary War fame, and the uncle of Confederate … Continue reading →

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

“Modern” or “modernist”?

Posted on February 10, 2019 by David Brussat

Occasionally I am urged to stop using “modern architecture” and use “modernist architecture” instead. The complaint, which issues from some of architecture’s top thinkers and makes considerable sense, is that the word modern normally means “of today” or “up to … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Revolutionary new museum!

Posted on June 10, 2016 by David Brussat

About a year ago, the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown was completed, replacing the Yorktown Victory Center – a quotidian slanty modernist version of colonial (it is brick) – with a classical, quasi-Palladian building of considerable merit. Today, Virginia senior … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Garages can be beautiful

Posted on January 6, 2016 by David Brussat

Here is the column I wrote for the Providence Journal about the design of parking garages, as promised in “Garage design in Providence.” Seeing the latest proposed garage design, a friend thought at first that the headline was “Garbage design … Continue reading →

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

Classicism in Newport News

Posted on September 12, 2015 by David Brussat

Calder Loth, a Virginia architectural historian, provided TradArch with good grist for chewing when he offered up a photo of a newly completed chapel, among the atest of a series of classical buildings on the new main campus at Christopher … Continue reading →

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

The birth of classical architecture

Posted on January 1, 2014 by David Brussat

Theories of how classical architecture sprang from a wood hut seem plausible enough. Some gradual progression was obviously involved. But somehow, when rendered in the form of a step-by-step history, however evocatively illustrated, it seems to lose all plausibility, elucidating … Continue reading →

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