Tag Archives: London

See London before the Fire

Posted on January 18, 2015 by David Brussat

Six students (of history? architecture? illustration?) have produced a 3½-minute video imagining what London before the Great Fire of 1666 must have been like. The animation is lifelike but the buildings are figments of their historical imaginations, variations of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mayors and modernism

Posted on January 7, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is a column I wrote back on May 22, 2008, just after Boris Johnson’s election as mayor of London. At the time there was good news coming from the mouths of mayors in Italy and Czechoslovakia as well. Rome … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Blast from past, Development, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Simon Jenkins contra Boris

Posted on January 6, 2015 by David Brussat

This piece in London’s Evening Standard by Simon Jenkins may lack the flair of Rowan Moore’s denunciation of the Walkie-Talkie in the Observer (I assure you that Jenkins is quite capable of summoning that flair). But Jenkins takes aim at … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Rowan Moore’s confusion

Posted on January 5, 2015 by David Brussat

Rowan Moore’s tart critique in the Observer of London’s newest tower since the hideous Shard – the Walkie-Talkie-Scorchie Building (20 Fenchurch) – is a joy to read. His sallies against the building that no longer burns cars on the streets … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Another Chelsea Barracks?

Posted on January 3, 2015 by David Brussat

According to Robert Booth’s piece in The Guardian, it appears that the next battle in the style wars of architecture will take place in London’s Hyde Park. Booth’s piece, entitled “Architects’ vision of London takes inspiration from 19th-century Paris,” describes … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Development, Other countries, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Scruton’s lonely candlestick

Posted on December 6, 2014 by David Brussat

Roger Scruton’s 1995 collection of essays, The Classical Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism, begins with an essay, “Reflections on a Candlestick,” in which he describes an objet d’art sitting in a Brutalist conference room: My eye came … Continue reading →

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

Trench of blood and poppies

Posted on November 8, 2014 by David Brussat

Among the most moving, impressive and beautiful temporary memorials in recent years is the flood of blood poppies in the moat around the Tower of London. Conceived by artist Peter Cummins to honor the sacrifice of Britons who died in … Continue reading →

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

Shot of Richmond Riverside

Posted on September 16, 2014 by David Brussat

This shot of Richmond Riverside, completed in the mid-1980s near London and designed by Quinlan Terry, is on the latest edition of AVOE – A Vision of Europe. It is so lovely that I decided to post it after posting … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Other countries, Preservation | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

More from “Wolf Hall”

Posted on April 8, 2014 by David Brussat

  Here’s another passage from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the pageant of Anne Boleyn’s investiture as Henry VIII’s queen: And looking down on them, those other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city’s uncounted population of stone … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Taki’s take on New York

Posted on April 5, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a piece from The Spectator (of Britain) by Taki, the London socialite of Greek extraction who has written the magazine’s “High Life” column since 1977. In this essay he ruminates filmographically about New York and how it has … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment