Tag Archives: Modern Architecture

Max building fail in Miami

Posted on June 25, 2021 by David Brussat

Aside from expressing sorrow and dismay, it is too early to say anything definitive about the beachfront building collapse in Surfside, Fla., north of Miami. The 12-story Champlain Towers condominiums opened in 1981 with 136 apartments. About half of the … Continue reading →

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An architectural reawakening

Posted on May 16, 2021 by David Brussat

Architect David Rau gave a lecture called “Reawakening” last week, sponsored by the New Vitruvians, the youth wing of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. He tracks four “awakenings” in the world today, involving … Continue reading →

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Pop the “historicist” bugaboo

Posted on April 25, 2021 by David Brussat

The architectural theorist Nikos Salingaros recently urged me to bar the use of the words historicist and pastiche, which modernists use to criticize architecture by traditionalists. “The modernists are forewarned that their favorite terms of insult are now off-limits,” quoth … Continue reading →

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How architecture evolves

Posted on March 16, 2021 by David Brussat

Here is a quotation about the evolution of architecture from “The Biological Fallacy” of Geoffrey Scott’s The Architecture of Humanism (1924): Decadence is a biological metaphor. Within the field of biology it holds true as a fact, and is subject … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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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Russia’s artful classicist – Da!

Posted on January 26, 2021 by David Brussat

Historian James Stevens Curl, the author of Making Dystopia (2018), the most comprehensive critical history of modern architecture, has sent me a marvelous video of the classical work of the Russian architect Mikhail Filippov. His work has been described as … Continue reading →

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Don’t trifle with this building

Posted on January 22, 2021 by David Brussat

Opened in 1823 to a design by Thomas Hamilton, Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School has a stern and foreboding look. But surely a grin can be detected among its colonnades: It has recently dodged the bullet of redevelopment as an … Continue reading →

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Betsky on classical popularity

Posted on December 26, 2020 by David Brussat

Before I applaud modernist critic Aaron Betsky’s kind words for classical architecture in the wake of the Harris Poll confirming its popularity, let me note, also with approval, the even more recent article by critic Kriston Capps, entitled “Why Trump’s … Continue reading →

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Life preserver for Inga Saffron

Posted on December 10, 2020 by David Brussat

Six months ago, Inga Saffron, the architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote a column, “Buildings Matter, Too,” deploring riot damage to buildings near the city’s fashionable Rittenhouse Square. Saffron herself did not write the headline, and anyway she buys … 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 →

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments