Tag Archives: Le Corbusier

Blake on Corbu’s “furniture”

Posted on October 4, 2021 by David Brussat

Peter Blake, modernist architect, critic and (eventually) apostate, writes about “functional” modernist furniture in his book Le Corbusier: Architecture and Form (1960), which I’m reading as a sort of launching pad to his book Form Follows Fiasco (the best book … Continue reading →

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See how form follows fiasco

Posted on September 21, 2021 by David Brussat

I’ve just started rereading the late Peter Blake’s slender 1960 hagiography of French architect Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland. A far better book on Corbu, as he is known by his many deluded admirers, is Le Corbusier: The … Continue reading →

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“The Art of Classic Planning”

Posted on December 1, 2020 by David Brussat

This comprehensive, fascinating and brilliant volume by Nir Haim Buras, who founded the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, is subtitled “Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities.” So one might well assume that it rejects the … Continue reading →

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Neighbors win third straight

Posted on October 11, 2020 by David Brussat

It may not yet be three strikes you’re out for the developers, but neighbors who want to preserve their little nook of history just off Benefit Street have persuaded the Providence Historic Preservation Commission that a plan to plop modern … Continue reading →

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They fought to save London

Posted on October 23, 2019 by David Brussat

I wonder what inspired Simon Jenkins, one of the few sensible architecture critics in Britain, to pen his recent lengthy essay in The Guardian, “Concrete Bungle,” subtitled “How public fury stopped the 1970s plan to turn London into a motorway.” … Continue reading →

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

The real Minnette de Silva

Posted on July 29, 2019 by David Brussat

Sometimes it seems like open season on female architects as long as they are in cahoots with the roving eye of Le Corbusier, one of the founding fathers of modern architecture. There is the recurrent hullaballoo over Eileen Gray, whose … Continue reading →

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The mods’ survival explained

Posted on January 29, 2019 by David Brussat

They cut the feedback loop. Nobody has done a better job of explaining the persistence of modern architecture than does Roger Scruton in his review of James Stevens Curl’s new book, Making Dystopia. In his review, Scruton sums up with … Continue reading →

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Moore’s attack on Scruton

Posted on November 28, 2018 by David Brussat

One of the Scepter’d Isle’s leading architecture critics, Rowan Moore of the Observer, has crafted an utterly despicable if entirely predictable attack on Sir Roger Scruton. Sir Roger is the British government’s choice to head a panel to bring beauty … Continue reading →

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Architecture’s Three Stooges

Posted on September 30, 2018 by David Brussat

Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician, psychiatrist and theorist of society, culture and design, has written a review of James Stevens Curl’s new book Making Dystopia for the New English Review. Dalrymple calls the book “essential, uncompromising, learned,” and especially devastating … Continue reading →

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Mies edits van der Rohe

Posted on August 31, 2018 by David Brussat

Most people know that one of the three world-historical founders of modern architecture, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, changed his name at age 33 to Le Corbusier (the crow). Not until I got to page 126 in James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia did … Continue reading →

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