Tag Archives: Museums

Believe his words/your eyes

Posted on October 25, 2017 by David Brussat

I think I’m going to start a new collection of buildings whose designers deny the obvious when confronting criticism of a work’s imagery. For example, the buildings above. They are actually a sculpture, yet the interview containing the denial is … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Lucas, return to Light Side

Posted on June 30, 2016 by David Brussat

George Lucas, having been rejected in efforts to build a museum with his own money first in San Francisco’s Presidio and then on the lakefront of Chicago, is back in the Paris of the West with a third proposal, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Met, NYPL dodge ’40s bullet

Posted on September 11, 2015 by David Brussat

A surprising revelation in an interesting paragraph from Michael Gross’s history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogues’ Gallery: [NYC parks commissioner and Met board member] Robert Moses’s first impression of the new director [Francis Henry Taylor, 1940-55] was changing. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Surprised and astonished

Posted on September 11, 2015 by David Brussat

One of the pet peeves of Michael Gross in his Rogues’ Gallery, a history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is how long it took its board’s stuffed shirts to accept modern art into its collection. Here is an amusing … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Artful restraint in Hartford

Posted on September 1, 2015 by David Brussat

This New York Times headline – “A New Look for the Wadsworth Atheneum” – had my neck hairs leaping to attention when I saw it in Paul Ranogajek’s email to the TradArch list yesterday. (Hats off to him!) A “new … Continue reading →

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What’s next for the Frick?

Posted on June 8, 2015 by David Brussat

The news reported by the New York Times’s architecture writer, Robin Pogebrin (“Frick Museum Abandons Contested Renovation Plan“), leaves me with mixed emotions. Over time, my skepticism grew regarding the traditional addition proposed for the Frick. The house was designed … Continue reading →

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Kimmelman swoops Whitney

Posted on April 24, 2015 by David Brussat

It took Theodore Dalrymple, an essayist for the Manhattan Institute’s splendid quarterly, City Journal, to pull back the curtain on the operatic vapidity of New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. The latter has written his architectural review of the … Continue reading →

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An evocative balustrade

Posted on April 21, 2015 by David Brussat

My favorite type of classical ornament has long been the baluster. I have a very small collection of balusters, including one from the Rhode Island State House, designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim Mead & White and finished in … Continue reading →

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What monuments tell us

Posted on March 15, 2015 by David Brussat

Recently, as museums to remember the stain of slavery in America are under construction in Washington and planned in Charleston, there has arisen the vital question of whether memorials should speak in a traditional language everyone can understand or a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Blast from past, Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Hell and Helsinki

Posted on December 4, 2014 by David Brussat

The 1,715 entries to the international design competition for a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki have been winnowed down to six, an entirely predictable six. I must admit I have not finished my cruise through the original entries. I have informed … Continue reading →

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