Tag Archives: Ornament

A memorial to the agrafe

Posted on May 31, 2021 by David Brussat

Today is a day to remember those who have given their lives to perpetuate our American system, the first rule based on the ideal of equality under law for all citizens. Each citizen differs, and likewise, while maybe not quite … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Drabble does ornament

Posted on May 15, 2017 by David Brussat

I’m close to the end of Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age. I posted a short while ago some passages on the attitudes of developers in postwar Britain (“Inside Drabble’s developer“). Now the father of her developer protagonist has died and … Continue reading →

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

Better ideas not worse, pls!

Posted on May 3, 2016 by David Brussat

Yesterday I sent in my monthly blog post for Traditional Building magazine, and today I’m thinking, well, I left out some really important stuff. My TB post was a reply to TB’s Forum in which the architectural historian Paul A. … Continue reading →

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

Still, his buildings were fine

Posted on January 2, 2016 by David Brussat

Reaching the end of Louis Sullivan’s Autobiography of an Idea, I could only wish that his place in architectural history was judged more by his buildings and less by what he wrote about architecture. Most of the book consists of … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More on form and function

Posted on December 31, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is the first lengthy passage in which Louis Sullivan, writing in his Autobiography of an Idea, unpacks “form follows function,” which has become a mantra of the modernist movement. It had to be misinterpreted for that to occur. So … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Form, function and Sullivan

Posted on December 24, 2015 by David Brussat

Am plunging into a 1956 softcover copy of Louis Sullivan’s The Autobiography of an Idea, first published in the early ’20s. The introduction to this edition by University of Illinois architecture professor Ralph Marlowe Line, written with the well-known forward … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Where eagles darechitecture

Posted on December 15, 2015 by David Brussat

This startling proposal of a supertallsuperthin residential tower showed up on TradArch the other day, sent by David Rau, who objects to the machined element of its ornament. His email set off a long debate about natural and unnatural materials … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Urbanism and planning, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Propriety of prose and vase

Posted on June 13, 2015 by David Brussat

Laura Heery sent me a few pages from Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, by Archibald Allison, published in 1832. Her communication arose from a discussion on Pro-Urb last month over the relationship of style to character in … Continue reading →

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

It’s a Wonderful Wall

Posted on May 1, 2015 by David Brussat

Here’s a wall that satisfies all of my demands for a fine façade. Hats off to Michael Rouchell, the New Orleans architect who sent the picture of the Emek Theater, in Istanbul, to the TradArch list. He added a comment … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Other countries, Preservation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Plecnik capitals you can see

Posted on March 25, 2015 by David Brussat

Here is that page of column capitals disambiguated from the shot taken and sent to TradArch by Angelo Gueli yesterday and posted in a cropped and undisambiguated (I think that’s a word) by me. The photos were too small for … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments