Providence Place: Still alive
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
1w ago
Providence Place glimpsed between buildings in downtown Providence. (Photo by author) I don’t have any deep inside knowledge (or shallow inside knowledge) of whether the downtown mall in my town, Providence Place, is going down the tubes soon. Still, my friend Will Morgan, who is also a local architecture critic, a rival of sorts, thinks it is, or thinks it might be. So, since I have a sentimental attachment to the thing, I wrote a reply to his piece on the GoLocalProv website. Here it is, with some minor changes: *** Overall a very nice piece, Will. I agree that the mall has been throu ..read more
Visit website
Wake up, Little Compton
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
2w ago
Adeline Slicer House (1887) still looks about the same as in 2003. (Photo by David Brussat.) Little Compton’s town council will soon receive advice from this corner that was good when originally delivered in 2003, in my Journal column of Aug. 28 of that year as part of my “Outside Providence” series. The series looked at efforts in the other 38 cities and towns to maintain their historical character. Dr. Ara Sadaniantz asked me to offer the council advice on whether to adopt a proposed historic district for the Commons, along with a regime for rewarding good stewardship with plaques. I have ..read more
Visit website
Save Pawtucket’s Ott Mansion
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
1M ago
The Read-Ott Mansion, 97 Walcott St., Quality Hill, Pawtucket, R.I. The headline of this post is the same as when I wrote it as my weekly column for the Providence Journal in 2008. The Read-Ott Mansion was at a most dire risk of demolition then, and remains so now. Its owner, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church of Pawtucket, is about to tear it down. True, it has had another 16 years of grace. In the name of the Virgin Mary, the church should cease and desist. Here is the conclusion of critic Will Morgan’s recent GoLocalProv piece, with more illustrations: Sadly, this is ..read more
Visit website
Gaza as we’ve never seen it
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
2M ago
Destruction in Gaza, a place Palestinians cannot enjoy and cannot escape. (Reuters) I occasionally devote a blog to cities devastated by war or natural disaster, showing how beautiful the place used to be (and to some extent may still be) as disaster consumes its ancient buildings. In most cases, the allure of places such as Beirut and Lviv, in Ukraine, is often well known by Western publics. Not so with Gaza, controlled by the terror group Hamas. Our mind’s eye – myself included – is taught to believe that Gaza is a hellhole and has been since the Israelis pulled out in 2005 (which is conve ..read more
Visit website
Behold, NYC’s Tudor City
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
2M ago
Top levels, including roof terrace, of Windsor Tower, one of 13 in Tudor City. (Wikipedia) I had lunch today (by now, yesterday) at Maven’s, a newly opened Jewish delicatessen in that plaza just off Hope Street as it becomes East Avenue, in Pawtucket. I’ve eaten there once before with my wife, Victoria – delicious, though not without some small kinks to be worked out – and this time I was by myself and talked with my table neighbor. We spoke of Manhattan, and he told me he’d once lived in Tudor City, near the United Nations complex. I said I was familiar with the name but not with its appear ..read more
Visit website
Don’t demo this sad trio
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
4M ago
Three houses on Angell Street, in Providence, whose proposed demolition is considered mysterious. Recent photograph of the three vacant houses whose demolition may be imminent. Someone has it in for a row of decent old houses on Angell Street. Specifically, they are Nos. 209, 211 and 217. They should be preserved. Their preservation should be second nature at every level of policy in Providence. Yet demolition permits are, according to the Providence Journal, in the works for all three – no one seems to know who applied for them, or for what purpose – and so the houses are sitting ducks aw ..read more
Visit website
Attack on downtown beauty
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
4M ago
Brick and cobblestone medallion on Westminster Street, in Providence. (GoLocalProv.com) Providence Mayor Smiley has smudged a frown on the beauty of downtown. He has demolished the decorative brick and stonework at the intersection of Westminster and Dorrance streets. This is the intersection, part of former Mayor Paolino’s excellent redesign of the old “Westminster Mall” as a street in the 1980s, and popularized by network television coverage of the city’s “dancing cop,” Tony Lepore, who used to mix traffic control with dance to entertain pedestrians (and frustrate drivers) at that intersec ..read more
Visit website
Anacostia waterfront in D.C.
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
5M ago
Section of proposed Anacostia river waterfront, in D.C. (Nir Buras) I grew up in Washington, D.C., and probably gained my affection for classical architecture from its grand public spaces. I went off to college and upon my return found a striking new waterfront along the Potomac River, parallel to M Street and the C&O Canal, in Georgetown. It was exciting not because of but in spite of its architecture, which was a sort of postmodernist mash-up of various forms. But because Washington had for at least a century ignored its waterfronts, not just the Potomac but the Anacostia River, south ..read more
Visit website
100 mill for a new archives?
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
5M ago
Archives committee met Tuesday in the library of the Rhode Island State House. The committee seeking a new home for the Rhode Island State Archives left wiggle room on whether to erect a new building for that purpose across Smith Street from the State House. It seemed from yesterday’s discussion in the Library Room of the General Assembly that, except for the hemming and hawing, the decision to build it, rather then locating it in an existing historic building in downtown Providence, has already been made. Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, who chaired the meeting, and his colleagu ..read more
Visit website
Attack on Wickenden St.
Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism
by David Brussat
5M ago
Rendering of proposal to redevelop site of 269 Wickenden St. (CPC) Thayer Street lost its character over the past two or three decades, as Providence and Brown shrugged their shoulders when “the Main Street of Brown University” saw its carriage trade and mom & pop shops ousted in favor of a still growing invasion of chain stores. Thayer is not without charm for those who admire the perusal of voluptuosity of either sex. But it no longer has the look or the feel of a community, or a neighborhood. The same thing has been happening on Wickenden Street, which has for years played second fidd ..read more
Visit website

Follow Architecture Here and There | Style Wars: classicsm vs. modernism on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR