On August 21, 2024, TomKlingenstein.com published an essay by me on beauty, virtue, and American classical architecture titled “Make America Beautiful Again.” Senator Marco Rubio called it a “must read piece.” To quote:

The Victorian art critic John Ruskin thought that “every form of noble architecture is in some sort the embodiment of the Polity, Life, History, and the Religious Faith of nations.” It makes sense, then, that throughout history statesmen and other leaders have concerned themselves with the design of symbolically important edifices. Unsurprisingly, when there exists disagreement about political and cultural values, the choice of architecture of noble buildings — including civic buildings — becomes a contested issue. But the intensity of past debates pales in comparison with the debate over political architecture today.

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In a 1784 letter to a 28-year-old John Trumbull, who would later mature into the lauded “painter of the American Revolution,” Edmund Burke emphasized the precedence of public edifices in a new country: “You belong to a young nation, which will soon want public buildings; these must be erected before the decorations of painting and sculpture will be required. … Qualify yourself to superintend their erection. Decorate them also, if you will.” 

Like the Virginia Capitol, buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, Treasury Department, and Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York City demonstrate the exceptional qualities of classical architecture: its beauty, harmony, and timelessness stem from its symmetry, balance, organized complexity, ornament and detailing, capacity for grandeur without arrogance, evocation of order without capital-R Rationalism, and grounding in human proportion and human experience. 

Classical architecture is not just about unparalleled aesthetic excellence; it is the architecture of American democracy, the style most associated with our system of government and our highest ideals, the architecture of civic virtue. It is also an architecture conducive to the rootedness of the polis, of the mutual bonds of citizenship extending across generations. In an era of presentism, classical architecture encourages Americans to think in centuries. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan told the Senate in 1983, “We must not preserve buildings out of a fear that we have lost the ability to create things of grace and beauty. … I wish to preserve things as an example of what we were and will be, not what we were and no longer can be.”

Classical public buildings make us feel proud of our country; they make us confident in our dignity as citizens of a great Republic. As art historian Vincent Scully said about New York’s original Pennsylvania Station, a Beaux Arts masterpiece inspired by an ancient Roman public bath, “One entered the city like a god.” Modernist architecture diminishes us; it would have us forget the past. Epitomizing Modernism, Brutalist public buildings thunder at us, “Mortal Man, Thou Art Nothing.”

We must preserve classical architecture most of all because it is ours. While there are other noble styles around the world, it is American classicism that is our heritage. It perpetuates and strengthens our wise system of government; unlike in countries such as France, now in its Fourth Republic, America has had only one regime, a single Republic that extends back to the War of Independence. In the face of those who wish to tear down that regime, we must protect and construct edifices that symbolize it. 

We must not forget that an everlasting Republic is buttressed by sempiternal beauty. . . . 

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You can read the whole thing HERE.