Tag Archives: Modern Architecture

Mayor Elorza’s brave veto

Posted on November 30, 2018 by David Brussat

To the surprise of most observers, Mayor Elorza vetoed the Providence City Council’s approval last week of legislation to raise by a factor of six the 100-foot height limit on Parcel 42 of the Route 195 corridor. That legislation, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Development, Providence Journal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Sir Roger’s hunt for beauty

Posted on November 11, 2018 by David Brussat

Sir Roger Scruton, the British philosopher and advocate of classical beauty and architecture, has been named chairman of a commission called Building Better, Building Beautiful to advise Britain’s government on issues of beauty in housing policy. This is fabulous news. … Continue reading →

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

Review: ‘Making Dystopia’

Posted on November 2, 2018 by David Brussat

[Review by David Brussat of Making Dystopia, by James Stevens Curl. Oxford University Press. 592 pages. U.S. publication date Oct. 23, 2018.] *** Modern architecture has hoaxed the world for well over half a century. Charlatans bred the founding modernist … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

‘Dystopia’ on sale in U.S.

Posted on October 25, 2018 by David Brussat

On Monday, Making Dystopia, by British architectural historian James Stevens Curl, officially went on sale in the United States. I am mere pages away from its completion and will review it soon. It offers a comprehensive study of a monstrous … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Europe as museum for rich?

Posted on October 7, 2018 by David Brussat

The late Walter Laqueur, who died last week after a long career cataloguing the sins of communism, terrorism and the Holocaust, was quoted in his New York Times obituary asserting that the “possibility that Europe will become a museum or … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Science and architecture

Posted on September 24, 2018 by David Brussat

Some perverse mental hiccup recently tricked my mind into picturing the Stata Center, designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 2004 to house the science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Woe was me, briefly, until my natural defensive … Continue reading →

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

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 →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bayley on Curl’s “Dystopia”

Posted on August 27, 2018 by David Brussat

Stephen Bayley, critic for The (U.K.) Spectator, has written “Modernist architecture is not barbarous – but the blinkered rejection of it is,” the second review (that I’ve seen so far) of James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Rome: Who are those guys?

Posted on August 20, 2018 by David Brussat

Who are those guys? Good question. But first, I must point out that indecipherable notes on a recent lecture force me to leapfrog a topic I’d intended to address today and grab a quicky topic instead. I’ve chosen to simply … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Photography, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Beyond translation indeed!

Posted on August 13, 2018 by David Brussat

It takes an act of will to make it all the way through a passage of hilariously sublime bureaucratese – quoted from a university prospectus – sent recently by architectural historian James Stevens Curl to a group of his friends … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments