Tag Archives: Steven Semes

Comments on my PPS post

Because many readers do not read the comments section of a blog, I am publishing two comments from eminent theorists who have read my blog post “Why preserve? PPS speaks.” They are from Steven Semes, a Notre Dame professor of … Continue reading

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The architecture of music

And vice versa, with painting thrown in. This is the subject of a fascinating essay written a decade ago by Steven Semes, author more recently of one of my bibles, The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, … Continue reading

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Credit for temple in Philly

The level of astonishment aroused by the new temple in Philadelphia for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not limited to this small corner of the archipunditsphere. My recent laudatory post, “Mormon temple in Philly,” has generated … Continue reading

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Bad trad betters bad mod

Another modernist building for Providence? Ugh! Here we go again. I could throw up my hands and settle with a sigh. After all, the crossroad that would host more blight, Washington Street and Service Road 7, is already marred by … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Providence, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Form, function and Sullivan

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

Semes on Paris and our cities

Steven Semes, head of the Rome program for the school of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of The Future of the Past (one of my bibles) has written a long and, I am sure, brilliant … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Other countries, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

My new TB and PH blog

Starting on New Year’s Day my blog joins forces with the online website blogs at Traditional Building and Period Homes. Architecture Old and New will combine new essays with posts from Architecture Here and There. My monthly blog on the … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Steven Semes on Henry Reed

Steven Semes, author of The Future of the Past and the newly appointed chairman of the new graduate preservation program at the architecture school of the University of Notre Dame, was supposed to speak at Saturday’s symposium honoring Henry Hope … Continue reading

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Column: Modern architecture’s coup d’etat

How did modern architecture suddenly replace the traditional architecture that, by the 20th century, offered a wide variety of joyful styles to house human activity? Why, in just three decades, were three millennia of beauty replaced so entirely by ugliness … Continue reading

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More on the modernist coup d’etat

John Massengale, head of the New Urbanists in New York and a classicist who often writes in to TradArch to note that modernism is at least as popular as traditional design in the cafes and restaurants of the Big Apple, … Continue reading

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