Tag Archives: Germany

Professor Curl’s revenge

Posted on January 27, 2023 by David Brussat

1933 competition entry by Mies van der Rohe for new Reichsbank. (Stevens Curl collection) Since the publication of his masterly evisceration of modernist architecture in 2018, Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism, James Stevens Curl has … Continue reading →

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“Symphony of a Great City”

Posted on October 9, 2021 by David Brussat

This video of Berlin made in 1927 – halfway between World War I and World War II – by German filmmaker Walter Ruttman, takes viewers through a day in the life of the metropolis, from morning to noon to night. … Continue reading →

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Driehaus for Treese of Mainz

Posted on February 10, 2021 by David Brussat

Perhaps it makes sense that Europeans have received the four of the last five Driehaus prizes. One went to a Thai. At the risk of appearing nativist, the last American laureate was the Florida architect Scott Merrill (2016). This year’s … Continue reading →

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Daum: Four days in Berlin

Posted on January 22, 2020 by David Brussat

This essay was written by Eric Daum, founder of the firm Eric Inman Daum, Architect, who traveled with his wife, Beth Niemi, to Berlin in November. Beth had been to East Berlin in 1986, and this essay is accompanied by … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Salingaros: How cities heal

Posted on June 19, 2019 by David Brussat

Globetrotting mathematician and theorist Nikos Salingaros hits the nail on the head in his recent analysis of urban ills in “A Schizophrenic Approach to Building Cities,” published on the Meeting of the Minds website. Actually he hits many nails on … Continue reading →

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Video: Restored in Frankfurt

Posted on April 19, 2018 by David Brussat

Leon Krier has sent a brief video, 57 seconds in all, of the recently completed restoration, in Frankfurt, Germany, of that city’s Huhner Markt area, Almost as pleasing as what the video reveals is what it replaces – in Krier’s … Continue reading →

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Millais on rebuilding Berlin

Posted on February 28, 2018 by David Brussat

Malcolm Millais, author of Le Corbusier, the Dishonest Architect and Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, recently visited Berlin, in part to investigate four examples of how Germans have reconstructed historic buildings damaged by Allied bombs in World War II. … Continue reading →

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Millais vs. Le Corbusier

Posted on November 5, 2017 by David Brussat

Malcolm Millais, the author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, has written Le Corbusier, the Dishonest Architect, brought out in Britain by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a brave book and a necessary book, a … Continue reading →

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Color film of Berlin in 1900

Posted on September 13, 2017 by David Brussat

Although three decades had passed since the Franco-Prussian War and another decade and a half awaited World War I, the Berliners in this 1900 color film (with some 1914 scenes toward the end) of their city appear depressed. The elegance … Continue reading →

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Hamburg in the crosshairs

Posted on July 9, 2017 by David Brussat

The annual G20 conference of the world’s major economies met in Hamburg last week, with leaders convening in palaces and demonstrators rioting in the streets. It brought to mind the cheerful violence that greeted me and my brother, Tony, on … Continue reading →

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