President of the National Civic Art Society, a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. that promotes the classical and humanistic tradition in public art and architecture. Eleventh Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency comprising seven presidential appointees who are the aesthetic guardians of Washington.
On August 9, 2024, I had the pleasure of giving a talk on “Citizenship and Public Architecture” at First Things magazine’s intellectual retreat at the Union League Club in New York City. To quote: [T]he classical tradition recrudesced in early … Continue reading
On September 7, 2024, I’ll be speaking at the University of Cambridge at a conference on “A New Path for Beauty: Shaping Tomorrow’s Institutions” sponsored by the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation. (I serve on their Board of Advisors.) My topic … Continue reading
On July 10, 2024, I gave a talk on “How We Turned the Tables on Modern Architectural Eyesores” at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C. I discussed policy regarding federal architecture, including President Trump’s Executive Order that re-oriented federal … Continue reading
I’ll be speaking on “Citizenship and Public Architecture” at First Things magazine’s intellectual retreat in New York City on August 9, 2024. You can register here.
On June 7, 2024, the National Civic Art Society, together with The Academy Of Philosophy & Letters, co-sponsored a lecture by C.J. Howard on “The Arrow of Aesthetics: Architecture’s Role in Cultural Formation Through Virtue.” Luke Sheahan and I made … Continue reading
In May 2024, I gave a talk on ordinary people’s preferences in architecture at a Beauty and Ugliness in Architecture conference in Oslo, Norway. Many members of the Arkitekturupproret (Architectural Uprising), a grassroots rebellion against Modernist architecture, were there. In … Continue reading
On May 19, 2024 at Georgetown University, I’ll be giving a talk on “Roger Scruton’s Philosophy of Architecture” at a conference on Scruton sponsored by the Center for American Culture and Ideas, the American Enterprise Institute, the Ethics & Public … Continue reading
I’m pleased to report that I’ll be giving a talk on ordinary people’s preferences in architecture at a conference in Oslo, Norway in May 2024. The theme of the conference is Beauty and Ugliness in Architecture. Other speakers include James … Continue reading
On January 16, 2024, I delivered a talk in Palm Beach, Florida on “Can Federal Architecture Be Great Again?: Trump, Biden, and the Politics of Beauty.” The event was sponsored by the National Civic Art Society and Palm Beach Freedom … Continue reading
Liberty Law Talk, a podcast of Law & Liberty, featured an interview of National Civic Art Society President Justin Shubow in which he talks about the influence of civic architecture on body politic, the role of the U.S. Commission of … Continue reading