It is always rather thrilling to be around for the birth of a new movement. To watch a fresh crop of intellectual leaders emerge, the publication of exciting new ideas, and the creation of institutions designed to make the movement’s vision a reality. The preceding decades have witnessed a steady stream of newly minted schools of thought. Some of these—such as national conservatism and integralism—have gained a great deal of public attention. Others have flown a bit more under the radar. Perhaps none more than the movement to revive classical architecture.
Spearheaded by the National Civic Art Society, this movement aims to upend the contemporary architectural landscape by waging total war on modernism. Their greatest achievement to date has been to convince the Trump administration to issue a blanket ban on the construction of any federal building that is not in the neoclassical style. As is too often the case with new intellectual movements, groups like the National Civic Art Society apprehend a genuine problem—the simple ugliness of most public buildings—but their solution is reactionary and reveals a shockingly superficial understanding of art.
The classical architecture movement locates the fountain of all artistic darkness in a little-known set of federal regulations called “the guiding principles for federal architecture.” Drafted in the early sixties by the future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan while he worked as an assistant to the Secretary of Labor, the report states, in short, that the government should pay significant attention to the architecture of the buildings it commissions—constructing interesting, beautiful buildings that reflect both our democratic nation and the very best of contemporary architecture. Almost no one protests that buildings should be beautiful rather than bland, but the advocates of classical architecture reject, in principle, Moynihan’s idea that public buildings should be constructed in the very best examples of contemporary architecture.
To understand the federal architecture guidelines as an uncritical, unthoughtful attack upon traditional buildings is a grave mistake. Moynihan did not hate classical architecture, nor was Moynihan uncritical of some modernist buildings that failed to live up to his aesthetic standards. When the Hart Senate Office Building was unveiled in 1981, Senator Moynihan cheekily proposed: “Whereas in the fall of 1980 the frame of the new Senate Office Building was covered with plastic sheathing in order that construction might continue during winter months; and Whereas the plastic cover has now been removed revealing, as feared, a building whose banality is exceeded only by its expense; and Whereas even in a democracy there are things it is well the people do not know about their government: Now, therefore, be it resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that the plastic cover be put back.”
Moynihan did not see the guidelines as an attempt to quash classical architecture—as some of its opponents argue—but as an attempt to bolster and expand the offerings of American civilization. As others have eloquently articulated, Moynihan believed that a nation incapable of advancing in architecture was a nation in decline. Put another way, the only reason to continually reuse the same model for buildings without any alterations is if we are incapable of producing anything new. This does not mean that traditional architecture is bad or should never be used. But it does mean that America should be making its own contributions to architectural history and building upon the past rather than just repeating it. As an example of the wonders America has already produced, Moynihan would point to such achievements as prairie style architecture and the invention of skyscrapers.
There is a great deal of truth to Moynihan’s sentiments. Architectural puritans who prefer a strict adherence to pre-modern buildings neglect the beauty of many more contemporary structures. They also display a frightening inability to appreciate America’s many unique contributions to the world of art. The Empire State Building, Falling Water, and the US Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel—these are our Westminster Abbey, Versailles, and St. Peter’s Basilica. They enliven the world of art and give America a place of its own in the pantheon of great civilizations.
Yet the critics of the guiding principles of federal architecture are not entirely wrong. Though modern architecture is not inherently bad, it is also not inherently good. Nor should we build all new government buildings in a modernist style just to promote contemporary design. Instead, we should set out clear standards for what makes a building truly beautiful. For some, buildings being new and breaking with the past is the whole point of a building. These designers artfully construct great concrete slabs that do not look so much like architecture as some sort of post-apocalyptic bunker. Such structures break every pattern and taste and are no more worthy of artistic glory than a toilet placed on a pedestal in an art gallery.
The mistake of the classical architecture movement is to think many of our public buildings are ugly simply because they are modern.
However, this does not mean that advocates of classical architecture offer a robust aesthetic alternative to modernism for the sake of modernism. For many devotees of classical architecture, the key to a good building is simple—it is traditional. Slap some ionic columns on a noble Roman edifice or some stained glass on a great stone cathedral, and you have a beautiful building. Like most simplistic formulas, this is simply wrong. To see and understand the true heart of good architecture, traditionalists would do well to turn to the ideas of the greatest American architect of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Born in 1867 and living through most of the following century, Wright is responsible for many of America’s greatest modern architectural marvels. In addition to his practical output, Wright was a serious writer and thinker. His writings reflect an appreciation not just for the practice of architecture but its theory—chiefly, what is the purpose of a building? Wright provided a two-part answer to this question. First, a building must be useful. At first blush, this may sound a touch utilitarian, but there is a simple truth to it: a house is meant to be lived in, an office is made for working, and an art gallery is designed to look at art. These structures must be constructed in such a way as to make possible and even enjoyable the activities they contain.
The second key purpose of a building is to be beautiful. This is a harder criterion to understand since the exact meaning of the word beauty is hotly contested. Wright uses this deep philosophical question to advocate for what he calls organic architecture. For Wright, the chief component of human-produced beauty is that it reflects nature. In other words, no human is capable of creating something beautiful that purposefully diverges from the world around it. Just as importantly, a building should not only complement the environment in which it is built, but the various components of the building must flow seamlessly into one another. Though perhaps unintentionally, Wright provides the firm foundation necessary to condemn modern buildings that seek purposefully to contrast with their surroundings or to be in some way unsettling.
The idea of organic architecture led Wright to invent the Prairie School of architecture. A style characterized by open floor plans, large glass windows overlooking natural landscapes, and the use of organic materials in construction. Though these concepts have impacted all of modern American architecture in tremendous ways—almost no newly constructed home has a closed floor plan—the guiding principles of prairie architecture can easily be applied as a standard for all good architecture, not just more modern work.
To prove this point, let’s take the example of one of America’s great traditional architects, Thomas Jefferson. Though better known as a politician and thinker, Jefferson-designed buildings are scattered across the rolling hills of Central Virginia. The most famous examples of his work are his private residence, Monticello, the University of Virginia, and the state capital of Virginia. All of Jefferson’s designs meet Wright’s criteria for good architecture, even if they are stylistically quite different from the Prairie School. Jefferson built his noble edifices with a clear purpose in mind that altered every aspect of their construction. For Jefferson, a university must have certain features conducive to learning, just as a home must have stylistic additions that provide comfort. In addition, Jefferson worked hard to blend his preference for Palladian architecture with the local material of brick. This helped ensure that his buildings blended seamlessly into the surrounding community. Likewise, Jefferson sought always to make sure that his buildings took into account the natural environment around them, adding to a landscape rather than disrupting it.
Though Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Jefferson designed entirely different sorts of buildings, they both met the principles of organic architecture. Thus, their buildings are both beautiful and worthy of adulation and repetition in American public architecture. However, the advocates of classical architecture are not wrong to notice that something has gone wrong with American public architecture. Many of our buildings are ugly, and the government seems to be building such structures with increasing frequency.
The mistake of the classical architecture movement is to think that many of our public buildings are ugly simply because they are modern. This is not the case. They are ugly because they are inorganic, because they purposefully clash with their immediate surroundings, and consist of elements almost designed to disrupt the flow of a room. Quite often, this ugliness is intentional, as with many contemporary forms of art, some architects have lost sight of the truth that a building is supposed to be beautiful. Instead, they argue that art should “disrupt” and “unsettle” the comfortable bourgeois lives of those who view it.
More often though, contemporary public buildings are not intentionally ugly. They are ugly because they are the product of a fast, lazy society that prioritizes speed and utility over beauty. Blockish heaps of glass and concrete are not often the products of prominent modern architects like Frank Gehry and I. M. Pei—they are produced by public officials’ desire to prioritize every aspect of a building over its aesthetics. Thus, much of the problem with modern architecture today stems from the malaise that has gripped the whole culture of the West. The proper response is not to paper over our problem, to force the construction of nice buildings using misguided approaches to architecture.
Instead, we must give a new generation the inspiration to construct beautiful buildings in whatever style moves their heart. The architectural theories of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Frank Lloyd Wright give us some idea of how such a revival can be brought about. Though innovation for the sake of innovation must always be discouraged, there is nothing wrong—and perhaps something very noble—about striving to forge a civilization that builds upon the artistic glories of the past. But, as Wright shows, such advancement must always be organic. New styles and modern buildings must strive to blend with the world around them rather than disrupt creation. Above all, we must revive a sense of the great and the magnificent. In the end, it is this alone that can save us from the mundane visual world we now inhabit.
