David Brussat

A Message to David’s Readers It is with deep sadness that we share the news that David Brussat, the voice and spirit behind Architecture Here and There, passed away on November 25th, 2025.David built this blog with great love—love for architecture, for beauty, for cities, and for the conversations that brought so many of you here. His wit, insight, and unwavering belief in the value of…

  Recent view of thee Parthenon with its scaffolding removed. The Parthenon skirted in scaffolding before its recent removal. For the first time in generations, the Parthenon is without its iron scaffolding. Tourists can view the famous Athenian landmark as it had been viewed by visitors to Greece for more than 200 years; it has been cloaked in construction garb for longer than can be…

Recent view of thee Parthenon with its scaffolding removed.  The Parthenon skirted in scaffolding before its recent removal.  For the first time in generations, the Parthenon is without its iron scaffolding. Tourists can view the famous Athenian landmark as it had been viewed by visitors to Greece for more than 200 years; it has been cloaked in construction garb for longer than can be remembered.…

Rhode Islanders are mourning the loss of a leading manufacturer, Hasbro, which yesterday announced its departure from Pawtucket to Boston. Hasbro will share space in an ugly building (see photograph above), owned by WS Development, typical of Beantown’s Seaport District, which has nothing to do with the sea or with ports. The new address will be 400 Summer St, The building’s owner is WS…

400 Summer St., in Boston’s Seaport District, where Hasbro has chosen to relocate its headquarters building, along with 700 jobs. (Photo courtesy of CoStar News) Rhode Islanders are mourning the loss of a leading manufacturer, Hasbro, which has announced its departure from its home of a century in Pawtucket, to Boston’s Seaport District, which, as a district, has nothing to do with the sea or…

Newport Creamery, in Cranston’s Garden City Center. (Vrbo) It has been widely noted of late and deplored that Cranston’s Newport Creamery is to be shut down. After 63 years across from the Garden City Center’s gazebo, the center’s owner, WS Development, has announced that the Cranston restaurant will be out of luck in 18 months, its lease terminated, and for no easily apparent reason. Boo! Boo…

Recently poposed lstate ballroom, to be erected in a building separate from the main presidential installations (East Wing, etc.) at 1600 Pwnnsylvania Avenue. (images courtesy of McCrery Architects) What we really need in this country, in the nation’s capital for god’s sake, is a grand new state ballroom to host White House guests – dignitaries foreign and domestic – presidents and such like – at…

Jane Austen on ‘improvements’ I have come across in Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park an interesting passage in which she describes rival plans for improving a house in the “living” (meaning parsonage) of Thornton Lacey, the hamlet in the town of Northhamptonshire. They are not just rival plans, the plans are rivals for the affection of the novel’s protagonist, Fanny Price, who lives nearby and…

The Providence Journal Building, 1933- on Fountain Street, in downtown Providence. (Wikipedia) I can find no other indication that David has passed away, beyond a phonecall from an even closer friend, to the effect that he passed away Thursday morning, age 82. David was a prolific editorial writer and columnist for the Providence Journal in the 1990s and the early 2000s, and other newspapers even…

Providence Journal Building, Fountain Street, 1933- (Wikipedia) I can find no other indication that David has passed away, beyond a phonecall from an even closer friend, to the effect that he passed away Thursday morning David was a prolific editorial writer and columnist for the Providence Journal in the 1990s and the early 2000s, among other newspapers even before he was hired by the Journal. I…

Leon Krier, photographed in 2018 in Poundbury. (Wikipedia) Léon Krier died yesterday morning in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, aged 79. Krier often spent time in Spain with Andrés Duany, another popular classicist. Krier was born in the capital city of Luxembourg after World War II, and observed its degradation thereafter at the hands of modernist architects. His design education was very brief; he…

  This recent view of Westminster Street is almost entirely indistinguishable from the period of CNU14, in 2006. (Google) Mark your calendars for June 11-14, which is when CNU-New England returns to Providence for CNU33. A full agenda may be viewed here. (The agenda lacks information of where its sessions are located.) CNU last landed in Rhode Island’s capital in 2006. That was CNU14. Below is a…

  Benjamin Nacar plays the tone poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” at the Music Mansion on College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island. (YouTube) This piano music, written and played by the Rhode Island pianist Benjamin Nacar, brings to life most beautifully the cadence of Paul Revere’s famous ride. It was performed on the ride’s 250th anniversary at the Music Mansion on College Hill, in…

Grand Penn proposal for rebuilding Penn Station. (Grand Penn Community Alliance) Big news: President Trump has agreed to take over the job of building a new, classically-inspired Pennsyvlania Station. He has given the boot to the inept Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and has put Amtrak – which owns the facility – in charge of rebuilding it, with Madison Square Garden to be demolished…

Typical Rube Goldberg device. (Rube Goldberg Inc.) Or, the Architecture of our Lives By this title I refer to the structures of the lives that we Americans, most of us, lead. Notwithstanding all the other things we all have going on in our lives, much of our lives as Americans is lived under a blizzard of mail of all sorts that comes into our mailboxes – digital and snail – almost every…

Cover illustration of Cannon Hill (ca. 1850), on the west side of Bellevue Avenue, built by a family from Boston. Photo by Aaron Usher III. This excellent volume is the second describing the splendid dwellings of the summer colony of the City by the Sea, by architectural historian Michael C. Kathrens. It is subtitled “1835-1885: The Summer Villas Before the Vanderbilt Era.” His first volume…

  Newly completed reconstruction of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. It’s a bit late to be hailing the rebuilt Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. How beautiful it looks, inside and out. For a deeper analysis of both I will await word from those more knowledgeable than I. Still, it was thrilling to see the leaders of the world, including President-elect Trump, gathering for the occasion. And perhaps it…