Tag Archives: TradArch

TAG 4: Classical gears up

Posted on March 2, 2021 by David Brussat

TAG 4, the fourth Traditional Architecture Gathering since the first, held in in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 for members of the TradArch listserv, happened on Zoom this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday, sponsored by the Classic Planning Institute. Some 600 … Continue reading →

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Learn more about classicism

Posted on January 31, 2021 by David Brussat

Alexis de Tocqueville discovered, during his visit to our country in the early 1830s, that we Americans form more associations to pursue civic goals than in Britain or, I suppose, in France, his native land, else he would not have … Continue reading →

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Unify in the fight for beauty

Posted on February 11, 2020 by David Brussat

The draft executive order to encourage classical architecture for federal buildings in Washington and elsewhere has shifted the world of architecture on its axis. Patrick Webb, a teacher of ornamental plastering at the American College of Building Arts in Charleston, … Continue reading →

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Buildings that go extinct

Posted on October 22, 2018 by David Brussat

Here is an interesting article in The Baffler, “The Archivists of Extinction,” by McMansion Hell blogger Kate Wagner. She focuses her microscope on folks who collect and post photos of old Kmarts, Toys ‘R’ Us’s, and the like, which are … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Preservation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bulldoze or rebuild Mack?

Posted on June 22, 2018 by David Brussat

A horrific second fire in four years at Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, completed in 1909, has elicited predictably cockamamie calls to demolish rather than to again rebuild the Scotsman’s masterpiece. Its restoration had been 80 percent complete … Continue reading →

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TB: Ode to a Tuscan column

Posted on March 10, 2017 by David Brussat

Here is February’s post for my blog at Traditional Building, titled “Ode to a Tuscan column.” It chews on some erudite – some might say persnickety – conversation about how to transform the entablature of a Tuscan column into the … Continue reading →

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Webb and the Zen of craft

Posted on January 13, 2017 by David Brussat

I have been remiss in not having shared with readers, until now, the essays of Patrick Webb, the Charleston-based plaster craftsman and classicist, whom I met a couple of years ago at a TradArch conference hosted by the American College … Continue reading →

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Alexander’s classical tent

Posted on October 23, 2016 by David Brussat

Christopher Alexander – well known for his Pattern Language, his four-volume The Nature of Order, and for his research on the natural creation of form in architecture and digital technology – wrote an excellent open letter to members of the … Continue reading →

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Revolutionary new museum!

Posted on June 10, 2016 by David Brussat

About a year ago, the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown was completed, replacing the Yorktown Victory Center – a quotidian slanty modernist version of colonial (it is brick) – with a classical, quasi-Palladian building of considerable merit. Today, Virginia senior … Continue reading →

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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 →

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