Tag Archives: Politics

Lame modernist rebuttal

Posted on November 14, 2017 by David Brussat

Juxtaposed above are two images designed to suggest the basic difference between traditional and modern architecture. They may be assumed to reflect the general tastes in architecture of the authors of the essays discussed below. The leftwing journal Current Affairs … Continue reading →

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Architecture into politics

Posted on April 26, 2017 by David Brussat

In his Dezeen essay “To confront populism, all architects should become classicists,” Phineas Harper suggests that the architectural profession should compromise its aesthetics and embrace classicism in order to build social housing that is often blocked by NIMBY forces when … Continue reading →

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Duo Dickinson on Trump II

Posted on August 7, 2016 by David Brussat

Three months ago, Connecticut architecture critic Duo Dickinson warned architects that the crowds with pitchforks backing Donald Trump might someday come for them. “Architects’ Trump moment” was well conceived. His latest venture into that political gulch, “Donald Trump as Architecture’s … Continue reading →

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Epiphany in Stuttgart

Posted on April 26, 2016 by David Brussat

My brother, his wife Sabrina and her two sons stayed a stretch in Germany for treatment of the two sons’ Lyme disease – successful treatment, by the way. They were in Stuttgart when Tony, a noted philosopher of the mind/body/nature continuum, … Continue reading →

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Fascism, modernism paired

Posted on April 21, 2016 by David Brussat

Mother’s milk flowing from her gentle soul, a good friend expressed at lunch yesterday her dismay at the fascist tendencies of modernist architect Philip Johnson. She is no fan of his buildings (there are two in Providence), but she was … Continue reading →

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

The politics of preservation

Posted on April 11, 2016 by David Brussat

Gail Wiesner is a real-estate agent in Raleigh, N.C., who, a couple years ago, raised concerns about a modernist addition to a neighbor’s house in her Oakwood neighborhood, a designated historic district. A more recent example, now resolved in court, … Continue reading →

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

Allan Greenberg’s classicism

Posted on June 5, 2015 by David Brussat

While the contagion of “global architecture” today dilutes the individual character of our cities, turning them into bland collections of interchangeable buildings, we now have voices offering a fresh choice: classical architecture based on local traditions and ideals. With the … Continue reading →

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The Providence conference

Posted on June 15, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is an e-mail I posted just now to the TradArch and Pro-Urb listservs, discussion groups that have for three or four days now been chewing on my last column, “Modernism invades New Urbanism,” along with architect David Rau’s cri … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Providence, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Is beauty conservative?

Posted on March 30, 2014 by David Brussat

No. Certainly not in the political sense. Beauty, by which I mean architectural beauty in traditional and classical design, is as alluring to liberals as it is to conservatives. Because political conservatives have been more skeptical of modern architecture and … Continue reading →

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