Tag Archives: Jane Jacobs

Krier: Politicians, take note

Posted on May 7, 2016 by David Brussat

Léon Krier, the architect, planner, theorist and master cartoonist who hails from Luxembourg, has called upon the European Union to build itself a new capital so that a way out of the world’s gathering problems might be forged. He says … Continue reading →

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Scalia rules on Mudd Hall

Posted on May 4, 2016 by David Brussat

As if from the grave, the late Antonin Scalia has reached out to rule against the late Mudd Hall, at Washington University in St. Louis, replaced 19 years ago by a beautiful new law school building. Not unrelatedly, today would … Continue reading →

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My Jane Jacobs river tour

Posted on April 30, 2016 by David Brussat

Wednesday would be the 100th birthday of Jane Jacobs if she had not died in 2006. Saturday at 1 p.m. is my third tour of Providence’s new riverfront for Jane’s Walk, the international conspiracy to spread her urbanist wisdom around … Continue reading →

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Architecture and happiness

Posted on September 23, 2015 by David Brussat

In “Why the ‘happiest’ cities are boring,” John Kay of the Financial Times makes a series of very important distinctions between happy cities and great cities, and in doing so he challenges most of the reigning official definitions of happiness … Continue reading →

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Sniffing at Corbu and E-1027

Posted on August 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Anthony Flint has an intriguing piece in Architect magazine, “Restoring Eileen Gray’s E-1027.” It’s about restoring the rather Corbusian seaside dacha designed by the Irish furniture designer (and lesbian) Eileen Gray. She had befriended the founder of modern architecture, Le … Continue reading →

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Join my Jane’s Walk again!

Posted on April 24, 2015 by David Brussat

I will be giving my second annual Jane’s Walk waterfront tour of downtown Providence on Saturday, May 2, at 1:00 p.m. We will meet at the Crawford Street Bridge – the new and beautiful bridge, not the late, unlamented Guinness … Continue reading →

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Between the lines of the NYT

Posted on December 27, 2014 by David Brussat

Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen, the architect and the writer who called on architects to pay more attention to public taste, do not seem to realize it, and would probably not admit it, but their essay in the New York … Continue reading →

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Choo-choo afternoon

Posted on October 19, 2014 by David Brussat

Spent an hour at the model train show in the Pawtucket Armory on Sunday afternoon. Superlative setups, though not as many as we had hoped, and most were linear, with mostly HO-scale trains choo-choo’ing up and down long, narrow platforms … Continue reading →

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The lady on the waterfront

Posted on October 19, 2014 by David Brussat

In her chapter “The curse of border vacuums” in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs considered waterfronts a potential assassin of liveliness in city districts, not intrinsically so but because they were often poorly used. But … Continue reading →

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Attack on Kennedy Plaza

Posted on October 7, 2014 by David Brussat

My last post may have unintentionally dissed Burnside Park and Kennedy Plaza, leaving readers with the impression that they were failures, and that Providence civic leaders and city officials, along with the state transit authority, were valiantly riding to the … Continue reading →

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