You are overthinking this a bit. We should not worry to much about the historical connotations or themes of architecture, but rather how to make the architecture beautiful and how to fit it in with the surroundings. People will look at the building more than read substacks about past similar styles in history.
Also all of DC is neoclassical pretty much as are many government building nationwide, so I fail to see how that doesn’t fit with our democratic tradition.
I would argue that neoclassical can be applied in either a democratic or a nondemocratic fashion. Jefferson's designs (and also the Jefferson Memorial) seem relatively democratic.
That proposed ballroom? Gold plating the interior of the White House? SMH
It is very hard for me to take seriously anyone who writes “nationalism is authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history.”
Particularly, when you give zero evidence to back your claim.
This is no different than Leftists who call everyone who disagrees with them “Nazis” and “Fascists.”
Nationalism is the belief that a people who share a common identity should form a distinct political community and that political authority should primarily serve and be derived from that nation. It is a concept that was supported by the Founding Fathers, and virtually every President and elected official until the last few generations.
I'm talking about the way that things like communism and nationalism are practiced in the real world, by people who call themselves communists and nationalists. I have no interest in dictionary definitions that do not apply to reality.
My description is an accurate summary of how these concepts are applied in the real world.
A serious person would care about "dictionary definitions" instead of just making up strawman insults.
I don't think one serious scholar of nationalism would agree with your statement that “nationalism is authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history.”
Nor is it how it has been practiced in the real world. What you describe is a tiny percentage of nationalist "practice in the real world."
Again, your statement is no different than Leftists who call everyone who disagrees with them “Nazis” and “Fascists.”
You are better than that... at least I thought so.
I don't even know why you included the statement in an essay about architecture, but it seriously undermines your credibility.
Founding a new nation is about as nationalistic as you can get! Why risk your life trying to form a new nation, if you did not believe in the concept?
Just because it took longer for the concept to get to Europe and the rest of the world, does mean that nationalism did not exist in the United States in the late 18th Century.
And do you actually believe that the "mid to late 19th century concept" is best described as "authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history?"
No serious scholar of nationalism would support such a statement.
The United States is very specifically *not* a country founded on the basis of a national identity. Italian unification and Czech independence and those sorts of things were nationalist projects, but the United States, like France, is a liberal project about freedom that is very much *not* committed to a national identity, but instead to the proposition that *all* men are created equal. Nationalism is about how one ethnic group is distinctive.
I am not the one writing the article, so the burden is not on me, but...
The Founding Fathers clearly subscribed to nationalism.
They believed that:
The American people constituted a single political community, and
Legitimate government derived from that people collectively, not from a king, dynasty, or empire.
In this sense, they were clearly nationalists: they sought to replace imperial rule with a sovereign nation-state grounded in popular consent.
However, their nationalism had important constraints:
1) Civic, not ethnic
The American nation was defined by shared political principles (constitutional government, consent of the governed, rule of law), not by race, language, or ancestry.
Someone could become American by adopting these principles.
2) Anti-imperial, not expansionist
Early American nationalism aimed at self-government, not at glorifying the nation or subordinating others. It was defensive and republican, not romantic or militarized.
3) Compatible with universal ideals
The Founders believed American principles were broadly applicable to humanity, not unique to a mystical national character. This sharply distinguishes them from later European nationalist movements.
4) Balanced by federalism and pluralism
They were wary of concentrated national power and deliberately divided sovereignty between states and the federal government—something later nationalists often rejected.
Figures like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington consistently framed the United States as a nation, but one defined by institutions and law rather than blood or destiny.
I cannot think of a single President or elected official before the year 2000 who would strongly disagree with the above.
I’m 95% on your side on this (I don’t care about dictionary definitions as much as you do), but I could have lived with the well-known left of center Scott Sumner taking that “nationalism is …” mostly cheap shot, had he not included antisemitism with it.
Because claiming that antisemitism is part of the mainstream American “nationalist” right - by any definition - without acknowledging that the American antisemitism problem on the left is not less than 10x, and perhaps as much as 30x+ (especially when you consider the political power of the people within their coalitions), is pure partisanship that is unhinged in someone who professes to be educated and give credence to experts.
Where the rest of his “cheap shot” can at least be argued to have some meaningful partial distinguishing, half-truth validity in America today, even if it is clearly an unfair caricaturization of an entire coalition for whom it applies fairly only to a relatively small minority.
Nationalism exists all over the world, and antisemitism is a big part of it. I never said every single nationalist is antisemitic--Trump is a good counterexample. But Trump fits most of the other traits I listed.
But you were describing nationalism in an American context in your piece on architecture in America - or at least that is what any reasonable reader is led to conclude - and you claimed it embodied all of the things you stated.
But I’m glad you acknowledge Trump ain’t antisemitic, and presumably you extend that to the modern GOP.
Sadly, the same can no longer be said of the modern Democratic Party.
Nor the left in the UK.
And it’s at best unclear whether it can be said in *any* western democracy in 2025 that anitisemitism is worse on the right than on the left. Maybe Austria or Hungary or Ireland? Germany?? (I do not know that it’s true even of any of them, but they’re about the only ones that it even seems plausible.) In the Anglosphere, it’s not even a close call.
MC&HH to you, Scott. Architecture is hard and controversial, both because as you say, people "have" to consume it, and because, relative to painting or songwriting, actually getting the thing done requires buy-in from more stakeholders, just because of the costs. This increases the chance that a powerful stakeholder is one stuck in the past.
I think Kitsch is mostly a problem because it lets weak artists attempt to make something in a "paint by numbers" fashion. A gifted architect could probably use an old style to great effect. Of course, because they are gifted they might be able to leverage their reputation and choose a different project wherein they are given more latitude, further distilling the old with the kitsch.
I'll trust you on the terminology, but "modernism" and "postmodernism" are unfortunate choices, like calling a data file "new results." What happens when they aren't modern ("new") any more? I think anything modern should either be called Bauhaus, Art Deco, or Ranch, and anything postmodern should just be called kitsch--or, if it's any good, wait for the next generation to give it a label, once it's copied enough to warrant one.
It’s interesting that “Futurism” somehow works as the name of a particular historical style preferred by 1920s fascists, rather than having the problem of “modernism”.
This seems like the correct take if you understand subtleties of architectural styles. But the push for classical/ornamental buildings is a less subtle reaction to contemporary buildings looking bad. The reactionaries aren’t sophisticated enough to understand this level of analysis. They look at buildings and conclude: that one is ugly. That one is pretty. We should do more of that. Not so different from what you’re doing, just less subtle!
Like any good democratic system, it’s the elites’ responsibility to carefully do the stuff (design buildings, pass policies) that are both well-informed (satisfy the subtleties) and please the dumb masses. If you don’t cater to the people enough, you get ugly ornamental revolt, etc. Trump is the ultimate “pressure release valve” to satisfy the reactions of the masses feeling the elite decisions “look ugly”.
The buildings you advocate for are all beautiful, and I think most people would agree, but I fear that architects don’t sufficiently aspire to satisfy the democratic appeal.
I agree with most of that. I'd say my primary point is that we should not have architectural review boards that impose neoclassicism on all public projects.
Scott, thanks for this. I'm a big fan of modern architecture and have seen some great realizations such as the Ghery museum in Bilbao and the Liebeskind Jewish Museum in Berlin. Exceptional concepts and use of materials! I was thinking back to the Ada Louise Huxtable critique of DC's Kennedy Center when it opened. When I moved down to Bethesda in 1978, I began going to concerts there and realized how correct she was in her assessment, "The style of the Kennedy Center is Washington superscale, but just a little bit bigger. Albert Speer would have approved." I was upset when President Trump got rid of the entire KC Board including David Rubenstein who donated a lot of money for its expansion. I was less concerned when he renamed the building as its design was never worthy of President Kennedy. It is worth of President Trump, an example of fraudulent design trying to mimic something dear but coming up short in every aspect. Ms. Huxtable's review is here: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/09/07/archives/architecture-a-look-at-the-kennedy-center-architecture-a-kennedy.html
I lived in Rome for 6 months. None of the Romans I talked to at the time had much bad to say about the fascist but neoclassical inspired architecture there.
I've also visited Turin frequently as I have family there. The most reviled building there is the rationalist Littoria Tower, meant to host the fascist national party, which towers above Piazza Castello in a way that doesn't fit the Piazza, or city really, much at all.
Part of the challenge with Scott's view, in Italy as in the US, is that regular people seem to have a genuine preference for neoclassical styles over modern ones -- particularly in official or government buildings.
I don't doubt that people say they prefer neoclassical buildings, but I think it's a bit more complicated than that. People also seem to prefer the light and airy feel of modern transportation buildings, over the darker structures of the past:
When wealthy people build new homes, the more educated cohort usually chooses modern styles, while the less well educated wealthy prefer traditional styles. That doesn't mean modern styles are better, but it's interesting.
I offered a similar reaction to Sam Bowman from the Works in Progress (WIP) crew. Like you, I've found new homes in my area deliberately built in 'older' styles are often kitsch, whereas more modernist homes can look better. The problem is that there are a lot of ugly examples of both. I can see why WIP writers would push for more traditional styles in the UK, but I don't think that suits younger and brighter countries like the US and Australia. Unfortunately, Australia doesn't seem to have many good architects - or at least not ones that get many gigs - and so we need to choose foreign ones. It's the post-modern public buildings that really rub people up the wrong way. For example, Federation Square in my home town of Melbourne was designed by a British architecture firm and has never won many lay fans despite receiving a swag of local architecture awards: https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g255100-d266090-Reviews-Fed_Square-Melbourne_Victoria.html
After returning from Japan, I would have much preferred something by Tadao Ando, or Pei or just about anyone. Gehry could be tricky; I like some of his stuff (Walt Disney concert hall in LA and Guggenheim Bilbao) but I'm not sure about the University of Technology building in Sydney.
I also have mixed feelings about Gehry. Some of it is very impressive, but I'm not a fan of his building at MIT. I stayed in a Gehry designed hotel in Prague.
As the quote from Hatherley alludes to, early fascist architecture in Italy was a lot more modernist than people have been conditioned to think. The Casa del Fascio in Como is a good example. The architect was Giuseppe Terragni, who also designed a very modernist never-built monument to Dante Alighieri in Rome.
Theodore Dalrymple also had an interesting take on European vs American architecture:
"American modernist architecture is convincing compared with the European variety because America is modern, whereas Europe, ever since the end of World War I, has merely tried to be modern, limping sadly after a model."
My small town had a number of building designed by Saarinen, Pei and other famous architects. None of them were in the classical Greco-Roman style. All were functional. It was something the community was interested in and private donations supplemented public funding. It did provide interesting highlights to the community. Of note, nothing was gaudy ie no gold. Nothing was ever designed to be the biggest. I think we are way too deferential to our elected officials and would be opposed to anything that smacks of aggrandizing government.
Are you writing about Columbus IN? If so, it is a fantastic place to visit to see a variety of different concepts, all done by the top architects of the time. I was a grad student at IU in the early 1970s and took my structural engineer father on a tour when came out for a visit. He was stunned by the quality of the designs. Anyone who travels to Indianapolis should take time out for a half day visit to see the buildings in Columbus!!
Yes! I kind of grew up thinking everyone's library must have been like the IM Pei library in our town in which I spent a lot fo time. Went to a number of lectures in the oil can church.
I mostly disagree. I think it's unfair that you compare some ugly McMansion type architecture with some landmark modernist building from a world renowned architect. Sure if you can get these architects to build all the county courthouses and office buildings and schools and post offices in the country, that's probably a good thing. But that's not going to happen and 98% of the time it will be untalented local architects trying to produce something weird to proclaim themselves as modern. if that's the case, conservative is better. And it doesn't have to be classical DC type architecture; just make it blend into the general environs rather than be an ugly attention getting eyesore.
The Sydney Opera House does not "blend in". Was it a mistake to build this project? I agree that we should mostly use tried and true styles for the majority of buildings, as it makes to little sense to always be experimenting. But a certain amount of experimentation is appropriate, especially when designing things like museums.
In my home town (Madison) there is an entire neighborhood of homes influenced by Wright. They blend in, and they look much nicer than the typical McMansion.
"schools and post offices"
I'd like to see schools privatized. Let the owners then decide what sort of architecture to use. I'd abolish the Post Office, so I'd prefer that no more (public) postal structures get build. Let Fedex and UPS decide on their structures.
you seen unhinged, at least on this topic. You didn't understand my point at all, and you used it to go way off the reservation and talk about privatizing the post office. What you just did, yet again, is exactly what I said ruins your argument. In my very first sentence I said it's unfair to compare ugly McMansions built by nobodies as an example of conservative architecture and matching them against some modernist masterpiece. And yet you go comparing the Sydney Opera House with a McMansion! (by the way I lived in Sydney for five years and the opera house is not aging well). My point is you can't compare the best of modern with the worst of traditional and call that a fair comparison. The fact is the vast majority of modern architecture is not the Bilbao Guggenheim; it's eyesores. So if you can't get Gehry to do your county courthouse, sticking to traditional architecture is better than letting amateur modern architects have a laugh at the public's expense. And the other stuff, wow, couldn't be less relevant. but if it helps you focus, think airports and police departments instead of schools and post offices.
To be clear, I mentioned the Sydney Opera House as an example of why "blending in" is not the right criterion. I would never argue that all buildings should be as experimental as that structure.
"think airports and police departments"
Almost every single airport terminal being built anywhere in the world uses modern architectural designs, which is as it should be. If you proposed a neoclassical design for a terminal you'd be laughed out of the room.
For police stations, I think something along the lines of a Frank Lloyd Wright design would be fine.
The first point, just no, you're not getting it, and it's really quite simple. think of it this way. World class architects designing out of the box signature buildings. Fine. Crappy architects producing modern "statements" instead of something classical that would blend in better, not fine. You've muddled this basic concept twice. As for the second, I'm just naming things, anything, to get you focused on your own post. Yes, airports were a stupid choice, but I was just trying to think of things you probably don't want privatized to bring you back to the topic at hand, architecture, not school choice. And then you end with Frank Lloyd Wright designed police stations. And we agree on that, yes if it happens. If it doesn't, which it won't, then a modern muddle that is a middle finger to the surrounding community doesn't work as a backup.
About 35 years ago, I had to go to the Marin Civic Center to check on some public records. I had no idea it was a Frank Lloyd Wright building. I just remember standing in the middle of the parking lot thinking this is a pretty cool looking building, then spending the next half hour walking all around it as I went from thinking it was pretty cool to being awestruck. It looked like a ship going through waves. It wasn’t until I returned home and read up on it that I realized who was behind it.
Democracy depends as much on the architecture of trust as on formal rules. When structures invite openness and accountability, they turn participation into lived experience rather than distant theory.
This was nice post for Christmas Eve. For some more great shots of the Marin County Civic Center I suggest the movie Gattaca. Frank Lloyd Wright is hard to copy stylistically. Kahn's work is more approachable in many respects when it comes to being an inspiration for bold and modern public architecture.
The Trump ballroom project is nuts, but the current policies and regulatory procedures for Historic Preservation are even more nuts. Old buildings can have aesthetic and emotional value, but they tend to be unsuited for so many modern uses. The average age for an urban building in Tokyo is around 25 years. They treat architecture like automobiles, and in many circumstances that is appropriate.
You are overthinking this a bit. We should not worry to much about the historical connotations or themes of architecture, but rather how to make the architecture beautiful and how to fit it in with the surroundings. People will look at the building more than read substacks about past similar styles in history.
Also all of DC is neoclassical pretty much as are many government building nationwide, so I fail to see how that doesn’t fit with our democratic tradition.
I would argue that neoclassical can be applied in either a democratic or a nondemocratic fashion. Jefferson's designs (and also the Jefferson Memorial) seem relatively democratic.
That proposed ballroom? Gold plating the interior of the White House? SMH
"He works you and me."
For a typo its pretty accurate
Ha! That's a good one.
It is very hard for me to take seriously anyone who writes “nationalism is authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history.”
Particularly, when you give zero evidence to back your claim.
This is no different than Leftists who call everyone who disagrees with them “Nazis” and “Fascists.”
Nationalism is the belief that a people who share a common identity should form a distinct political community and that political authority should primarily serve and be derived from that nation. It is a concept that was supported by the Founding Fathers, and virtually every President and elected official until the last few generations.
I'm talking about the way that things like communism and nationalism are practiced in the real world, by people who call themselves communists and nationalists. I have no interest in dictionary definitions that do not apply to reality.
My description is an accurate summary of how these concepts are applied in the real world.
A serious person would care about "dictionary definitions" instead of just making up strawman insults.
I don't think one serious scholar of nationalism would agree with your statement that “nationalism is authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history.”
Nor is it how it has been practiced in the real world. What you describe is a tiny percentage of nationalist "practice in the real world."
Again, your statement is no different than Leftists who call everyone who disagrees with them “Nazis” and “Fascists.”
You are better than that... at least I thought so.
I don't even know why you included the statement in an essay about architecture, but it seriously undermines your credibility.
"Nor is it how it has been practiced in the real world."
Really? I'd suggest you do a bit more research:
https://www.cato.org/outside-articles/case-against-nationalism
“ It is a concept that was supported by the Founding Fathers, and virtually every President and elected official until the last few generations.”
You give zero evidence to back your claim.
(Especially since “nationalism” is a mid to late 19th century concept that no one had in the 1790s or 1800s.)
Seriously?
Founding a new nation is about as nationalistic as you can get! Why risk your life trying to form a new nation, if you did not believe in the concept?
Just because it took longer for the concept to get to Europe and the rest of the world, does mean that nationalism did not exist in the United States in the late 18th Century.
And do you actually believe that the "mid to late 19th century concept" is best described as "authoritarianism, protectionism, xenophobia, antisemitism, militarism, misogyny, and teaching fake history?"
No serious scholar of nationalism would support such a statement.
The United States is very specifically *not* a country founded on the basis of a national identity. Italian unification and Czech independence and those sorts of things were nationalist projects, but the United States, like France, is a liberal project about freedom that is very much *not* committed to a national identity, but instead to the proposition that *all* men are created equal. Nationalism is about how one ethnic group is distinctive.
I am not the one writing the article, so the burden is not on me, but...
The Founding Fathers clearly subscribed to nationalism.
They believed that:
The American people constituted a single political community, and
Legitimate government derived from that people collectively, not from a king, dynasty, or empire.
In this sense, they were clearly nationalists: they sought to replace imperial rule with a sovereign nation-state grounded in popular consent.
However, their nationalism had important constraints:
1) Civic, not ethnic
The American nation was defined by shared political principles (constitutional government, consent of the governed, rule of law), not by race, language, or ancestry.
Someone could become American by adopting these principles.
2) Anti-imperial, not expansionist
Early American nationalism aimed at self-government, not at glorifying the nation or subordinating others. It was defensive and republican, not romantic or militarized.
3) Compatible with universal ideals
The Founders believed American principles were broadly applicable to humanity, not unique to a mystical national character. This sharply distinguishes them from later European nationalist movements.
4) Balanced by federalism and pluralism
They were wary of concentrated national power and deliberately divided sovereignty between states and the federal government—something later nationalists often rejected.
Figures like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington consistently framed the United States as a nation, but one defined by institutions and law rather than blood or destiny.
I cannot think of a single President or elected official before the year 2000 who would strongly disagree with the above.
If the past 15 years have made anything clear it's that Americans don't share a common identity.
And they haven't ever, really.
I subscribe to this article's views for much more on this subject: https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-nation/
That does not change the definition of nationalism.
American "never shared a common identify?????"
WTF?
I’m 95% on your side on this (I don’t care about dictionary definitions as much as you do), but I could have lived with the well-known left of center Scott Sumner taking that “nationalism is …” mostly cheap shot, had he not included antisemitism with it.
Because claiming that antisemitism is part of the mainstream American “nationalist” right - by any definition - without acknowledging that the American antisemitism problem on the left is not less than 10x, and perhaps as much as 30x+ (especially when you consider the political power of the people within their coalitions), is pure partisanship that is unhinged in someone who professes to be educated and give credence to experts.
Where the rest of his “cheap shot” can at least be argued to have some meaningful partial distinguishing, half-truth validity in America today, even if it is clearly an unfair caricaturization of an entire coalition for whom it applies fairly only to a relatively small minority.
Nationalism exists all over the world, and antisemitism is a big part of it. I never said every single nationalist is antisemitic--Trump is a good counterexample. But Trump fits most of the other traits I listed.
But you were describing nationalism in an American context in your piece on architecture in America - or at least that is what any reasonable reader is led to conclude - and you claimed it embodied all of the things you stated.
But I’m glad you acknowledge Trump ain’t antisemitic, and presumably you extend that to the modern GOP.
Sadly, the same can no longer be said of the modern Democratic Party.
Nor the left in the UK.
And it’s at best unclear whether it can be said in *any* western democracy in 2025 that anitisemitism is worse on the right than on the left. Maybe Austria or Hungary or Ireland? Germany?? (I do not know that it’s true even of any of them, but they’re about the only ones that it even seems plausible.) In the Anglosphere, it’s not even a close call.
Remind me, was it Heritage or Brookings that was recently torn apart over the issue of antisemitism?
I try to look at the world the way it is, not the way it is portrayed by Fox News. But to each their own.
MC&HH to you, Scott. Architecture is hard and controversial, both because as you say, people "have" to consume it, and because, relative to painting or songwriting, actually getting the thing done requires buy-in from more stakeholders, just because of the costs. This increases the chance that a powerful stakeholder is one stuck in the past.
I think Kitsch is mostly a problem because it lets weak artists attempt to make something in a "paint by numbers" fashion. A gifted architect could probably use an old style to great effect. Of course, because they are gifted they might be able to leverage their reputation and choose a different project wherein they are given more latitude, further distilling the old with the kitsch.
I'll trust you on the terminology, but "modernism" and "postmodernism" are unfortunate choices, like calling a data file "new results." What happens when they aren't modern ("new") any more? I think anything modern should either be called Bauhaus, Art Deco, or Ranch, and anything postmodern should just be called kitsch--or, if it's any good, wait for the next generation to give it a label, once it's copied enough to warrant one.
I wonder what "modernism" will be called 200 years from now? Perhaps "20th century art"?
It’s interesting that “Futurism” somehow works as the name of a particular historical style preferred by 1920s fascists, rather than having the problem of “modernism”.
This seems like the correct take if you understand subtleties of architectural styles. But the push for classical/ornamental buildings is a less subtle reaction to contemporary buildings looking bad. The reactionaries aren’t sophisticated enough to understand this level of analysis. They look at buildings and conclude: that one is ugly. That one is pretty. We should do more of that. Not so different from what you’re doing, just less subtle!
Like any good democratic system, it’s the elites’ responsibility to carefully do the stuff (design buildings, pass policies) that are both well-informed (satisfy the subtleties) and please the dumb masses. If you don’t cater to the people enough, you get ugly ornamental revolt, etc. Trump is the ultimate “pressure release valve” to satisfy the reactions of the masses feeling the elite decisions “look ugly”.
The buildings you advocate for are all beautiful, and I think most people would agree, but I fear that architects don’t sufficiently aspire to satisfy the democratic appeal.
I agree with most of that. I'd say my primary point is that we should not have architectural review boards that impose neoclassicism on all public projects.
Scott, thanks for this. I'm a big fan of modern architecture and have seen some great realizations such as the Ghery museum in Bilbao and the Liebeskind Jewish Museum in Berlin. Exceptional concepts and use of materials! I was thinking back to the Ada Louise Huxtable critique of DC's Kennedy Center when it opened. When I moved down to Bethesda in 1978, I began going to concerts there and realized how correct she was in her assessment, "The style of the Kennedy Center is Washington superscale, but just a little bit bigger. Albert Speer would have approved." I was upset when President Trump got rid of the entire KC Board including David Rubenstein who donated a lot of money for its expansion. I was less concerned when he renamed the building as its design was never worthy of President Kennedy. It is worth of President Trump, an example of fraudulent design trying to mimic something dear but coming up short in every aspect. Ms. Huxtable's review is here: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/09/07/archives/architecture-a-look-at-the-kennedy-center-architecture-a-kennedy.html
Kitsch is severely underrated.
I lived in Rome for 6 months. None of the Romans I talked to at the time had much bad to say about the fascist but neoclassical inspired architecture there.
I've also visited Turin frequently as I have family there. The most reviled building there is the rationalist Littoria Tower, meant to host the fascist national party, which towers above Piazza Castello in a way that doesn't fit the Piazza, or city really, much at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Littoria
Part of the challenge with Scott's view, in Italy as in the US, is that regular people seem to have a genuine preference for neoclassical styles over modern ones -- particularly in official or government buildings.
I don't doubt that people say they prefer neoclassical buildings, but I think it's a bit more complicated than that. People also seem to prefer the light and airy feel of modern transportation buildings, over the darker structures of the past:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_station_(PATH)
Think about a new airport terminal. Should that use a neoclassical design? Everywhere in the world, they opt for modern.
In my home town (Madison) there's a very nice new terminal done in a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright style.
https://www.jsonline.com/picture-gallery/news/2024/03/04/see-the-dane-county-regional-airports-new-makeover/72807772007/
When wealthy people build new homes, the more educated cohort usually chooses modern styles, while the less well educated wealthy prefer traditional styles. That doesn't mean modern styles are better, but it's interesting.
I offered a similar reaction to Sam Bowman from the Works in Progress (WIP) crew. Like you, I've found new homes in my area deliberately built in 'older' styles are often kitsch, whereas more modernist homes can look better. The problem is that there are a lot of ugly examples of both. I can see why WIP writers would push for more traditional styles in the UK, but I don't think that suits younger and brighter countries like the US and Australia. Unfortunately, Australia doesn't seem to have many good architects - or at least not ones that get many gigs - and so we need to choose foreign ones. It's the post-modern public buildings that really rub people up the wrong way. For example, Federation Square in my home town of Melbourne was designed by a British architecture firm and has never won many lay fans despite receiving a swag of local architecture awards: https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g255100-d266090-Reviews-Fed_Square-Melbourne_Victoria.html
After returning from Japan, I would have much preferred something by Tadao Ando, or Pei or just about anyone. Gehry could be tricky; I like some of his stuff (Walt Disney concert hall in LA and Guggenheim Bilbao) but I'm not sure about the University of Technology building in Sydney.
I also have mixed feelings about Gehry. Some of it is very impressive, but I'm not a fan of his building at MIT. I stayed in a Gehry designed hotel in Prague.
As the quote from Hatherley alludes to, early fascist architecture in Italy was a lot more modernist than people have been conditioned to think. The Casa del Fascio in Como is a good example. The architect was Giuseppe Terragni, who also designed a very modernist never-built monument to Dante Alighieri in Rome.
Theodore Dalrymple also had an interesting take on European vs American architecture:
"American modernist architecture is convincing compared with the European variety because America is modern, whereas Europe, ever since the end of World War I, has merely tried to be modern, limping sadly after a model."
https://www.city-journal.org/article/cities-and-memory
That's a good quote, but to be fair there's a lot of good modern architecture in Europe, maybe more than in the US.
I've not traveled as much, so I'll have to take your word for it
My small town had a number of building designed by Saarinen, Pei and other famous architects. None of them were in the classical Greco-Roman style. All were functional. It was something the community was interested in and private donations supplemented public funding. It did provide interesting highlights to the community. Of note, nothing was gaudy ie no gold. Nothing was ever designed to be the biggest. I think we are way too deferential to our elected officials and would be opposed to anything that smacks of aggrandizing government.
Steve
Are you writing about Columbus IN? If so, it is a fantastic place to visit to see a variety of different concepts, all done by the top architects of the time. I was a grad student at IU in the early 1970s and took my structural engineer father on a tour when came out for a visit. He was stunned by the quality of the designs. Anyone who travels to Indianapolis should take time out for a half day visit to see the buildings in Columbus!!
Yes! I kind of grew up thinking everyone's library must have been like the IM Pei library in our town in which I spent a lot fo time. Went to a number of lectures in the oil can church.
Steve
I mostly disagree. I think it's unfair that you compare some ugly McMansion type architecture with some landmark modernist building from a world renowned architect. Sure if you can get these architects to build all the county courthouses and office buildings and schools and post offices in the country, that's probably a good thing. But that's not going to happen and 98% of the time it will be untalented local architects trying to produce something weird to proclaim themselves as modern. if that's the case, conservative is better. And it doesn't have to be classical DC type architecture; just make it blend into the general environs rather than be an ugly attention getting eyesore.
The Sydney Opera House does not "blend in". Was it a mistake to build this project? I agree that we should mostly use tried and true styles for the majority of buildings, as it makes to little sense to always be experimenting. But a certain amount of experimentation is appropriate, especially when designing things like museums.
In my home town (Madison) there is an entire neighborhood of homes influenced by Wright. They blend in, and they look much nicer than the typical McMansion.
"schools and post offices"
I'd like to see schools privatized. Let the owners then decide what sort of architecture to use. I'd abolish the Post Office, so I'd prefer that no more (public) postal structures get build. Let Fedex and UPS decide on their structures.
you seen unhinged, at least on this topic. You didn't understand my point at all, and you used it to go way off the reservation and talk about privatizing the post office. What you just did, yet again, is exactly what I said ruins your argument. In my very first sentence I said it's unfair to compare ugly McMansions built by nobodies as an example of conservative architecture and matching them against some modernist masterpiece. And yet you go comparing the Sydney Opera House with a McMansion! (by the way I lived in Sydney for five years and the opera house is not aging well). My point is you can't compare the best of modern with the worst of traditional and call that a fair comparison. The fact is the vast majority of modern architecture is not the Bilbao Guggenheim; it's eyesores. So if you can't get Gehry to do your county courthouse, sticking to traditional architecture is better than letting amateur modern architects have a laugh at the public's expense. And the other stuff, wow, couldn't be less relevant. but if it helps you focus, think airports and police departments instead of schools and post offices.
To be clear, I mentioned the Sydney Opera House as an example of why "blending in" is not the right criterion. I would never argue that all buildings should be as experimental as that structure.
"think airports and police departments"
Almost every single airport terminal being built anywhere in the world uses modern architectural designs, which is as it should be. If you proposed a neoclassical design for a terminal you'd be laughed out of the room.
For police stations, I think something along the lines of a Frank Lloyd Wright design would be fine.
"you seen unhinged"
And Merry Christmas to you as well.
The first point, just no, you're not getting it, and it's really quite simple. think of it this way. World class architects designing out of the box signature buildings. Fine. Crappy architects producing modern "statements" instead of something classical that would blend in better, not fine. You've muddled this basic concept twice. As for the second, I'm just naming things, anything, to get you focused on your own post. Yes, airports were a stupid choice, but I was just trying to think of things you probably don't want privatized to bring you back to the topic at hand, architecture, not school choice. And then you end with Frank Lloyd Wright designed police stations. And we agree on that, yes if it happens. If it doesn't, which it won't, then a modern muddle that is a middle finger to the surrounding community doesn't work as a backup.
Some related thoughts https://open.substack.com/pub/vpostrel/p/from-the-archives-the-faux-populism?r=zpjg&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
Thanks, I like your post much better than mine.
About 35 years ago, I had to go to the Marin Civic Center to check on some public records. I had no idea it was a Frank Lloyd Wright building. I just remember standing in the middle of the parking lot thinking this is a pretty cool looking building, then spending the next half hour walking all around it as I went from thinking it was pretty cool to being awestruck. It looked like a ship going through waves. It wasn’t until I returned home and read up on it that I realized who was behind it.
Democracy depends as much on the architecture of trust as on formal rules. When structures invite openness and accountability, they turn participation into lived experience rather than distant theory.
This was nice post for Christmas Eve. For some more great shots of the Marin County Civic Center I suggest the movie Gattaca. Frank Lloyd Wright is hard to copy stylistically. Kahn's work is more approachable in many respects when it comes to being an inspiration for bold and modern public architecture.
The Trump ballroom project is nuts, but the current policies and regulatory procedures for Historic Preservation are even more nuts. Old buildings can have aesthetic and emotional value, but they tend to be unsuited for so many modern uses. The average age for an urban building in Tokyo is around 25 years. They treat architecture like automobiles, and in many circumstances that is appropriate.