Tag Archives: modernism

More modernist parents stuff

Posted on March 4, 2015 by David Brussat

Prof. Jan Michl, of Oslo, saw my post “My Modernist Parents,” with its trailers of a short Norwegian animated film Me and My Moulton, which was up for an Oscar this year for portraying the trials and tribulations of being … Continue reading →

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Criticism of criticism of …

Posted on March 2, 2015 by David Brussat

That’s the title of a famous H.L. Mencken essay called “Criticism of Criticism of Criticism” about the convolutions of critical theoretics. An article by Mark Minkjan in one of my favorite blogs, Failed Architecture, is called “ArchDaily and Architecture Criticism.” … Continue reading →

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On “Cognitive Architecture”

Posted on February 22, 2015 by David Brussat

Ann Sussman will be in Boston on Tuesday evening to discuss her book Cognitive Architecture. She will speak at an event sponsored by the New England chapter of the Insitute of Classical Architecture & Art beginning at 6 in the … Continue reading →

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“Design for a Living Planet’

Posted on February 18, 2015 by David Brussat

In their newly published book, subtitled “Settlement, Science and the Human Future,” authors Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros argue that human well-being, indeed survival here on Earth, requires replacing our overly mechanized, technologized way of life with patterns of living … Continue reading →

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An idea for visual pushback

Posted on February 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Architecture, along with almost every other major human endeavor outside of food and music, is largely visual in its effect. Traditional architects rely on the appeal of their work to the eye as they try to push back against the … Continue reading →

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Modernism’s “Deflategate”

Posted on February 1, 2015 by David Brussat

The BBC documentary Vienna: City of Dreams is about as entirely marinated in modernism’s institutional bias as it is possible for a film of an hour and a half to be. And yet it is beautiful in spite of itself. … Continue reading →

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A few words about breasts

Posted on January 21, 2015 by David Brussat

It would be shameful if Blaine Brownell’s essay “The Disruptive Nature of Architectural Innovation” in Architect, the voice of the AIA, were the last word on disruption as a strategy of innovation in architecture. He complains that “experimentation in architecture … Continue reading →

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Justin Lee Miller: Architecture and the operatic angst

Posted on January 19, 2015 by David Brussat

Justin Lee Miller, the opera singer, actor and playwright, has sent me a fascinating essay that elucidates the parallels between opera and architecture, especially in regard to the handling of traditional works by their modernist interpreters. Here is the passage … Continue reading →

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Nathaniel Robert Walker: Architecture and food

Posted on January 8, 2015 by David Brussat

My friend Nathaniel Walker, who got his doctorate at Brown last spring and now teaches architectural history at the College of Charleston, has contributed this essay. * * * From the Ground Up: How Architects Can Learn from the Organic and … Continue reading →

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Ornament and Crimehaus

Posted on December 31, 2014 by David Brussat

Recently, after several contributors to a TradArch discussion of Adolf Loos and his famous building in Vienna, Andres Duany pointed out that the windows in the upper floors don’t align with the building’s ground-floor features. Earlier comments had referred to … Continue reading →

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