Tag Archives: Modern Architecture

Review: “Classic Columns”

Posted on December 1, 2017 by David Brussat

Aside from my own book Lost Providence, Robert Adam’s Classic Columns, published by Cumulus Books, London, is the recent book that I would place highest on my list of books to give to friends or family members interested in architecture … Continue reading →

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London perceived, tortured

Posted on November 26, 2017 by David Brussat

By torture, we’re not talking pins under fingernails, the Iron Maiden or Philip Glass, but how else to describe what the leadership of London has done to the city of London in the last several decades? If a city is … Continue reading →

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Flirtation and architecture

Posted on November 22, 2017 by David Brussat

The progression from flirtation to seduction may be comparable to the progression between the stages of embellishment in architecture. The parallel may be drawn from an article by the Associated Press on how the French are reacting to the sexual … Continue reading →

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Lame modernist rebuttal

Posted on November 14, 2017 by David Brussat

Juxtaposed above are two images designed to suggest the basic difference between traditional and modern architecture. They may be assumed to reflect the general tastes in architecture of the authors of the essays discussed below. The leftwing journal Current Affairs … Continue reading →

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Jan Gehl’s misplacemaking

Posted on November 7, 2017 by David Brussat

ArchDaily has interviewed Jan Gehl, the noted Danish designer and theorist of placemaking. The article, “In the last 50 years, architects have forgotten what a good human scale is,” suggests that Gehl’s thinking, for all its merit, has not truly … 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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Goldberger & Goldhagen

Posted on October 12, 2017 by David Brussat

The Nation magazine has a review by Paul Goldberger of a book by Sarah Williams Goldhagen, also a respected architecture critic, called Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives. Goldberger’s review, “A Shimmery Cube,” applauds Goldhagen … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

“Lost Providence” explained

Posted on October 11, 2017 by David Brussat

I just submitted my October post for my blog at Traditional Building, entitled “Monument vs. Fabric, or the difficulty of admitting deep error.” This means I am free to post my last month’s TB post on my Architecture Here and … Continue reading →

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New teaching in architecture

Posted on October 4, 2017 by David Brussat

Yesterday’s post, “‘Building Beauty’ in Naples,” discusses a new program of architecture education in Italy that emphasizes beauty. It is mind-boggling that even in Italy an architecture program that emphasizes beauty is news. I issued a tentative warning about the … Continue reading →

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Brutalists are people, too

Posted on July 31, 2017 by David Brussat

Just very bad people. How bad is detailed in an entertaining, if depressing, article on the Londonist website entitled “How Brutalism Scarred London.” The closest I can come to ripping off the veil of anonymity donned by the article’s author, … Continue reading →

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