President Trump issued an executive order making classical architecture the preferred style for federal buildings and U.S. courthouses. Justin Shubow runs the National Civic Art Society and campaigned for this policy through years of focused advocacy since joining NCAS in 2011. Shubow contends that modernist architecture became the de facto federal standard over roughly 75 years and that an elite architectural aesthetic has subverted American democratic architecture in ways contrary to public preference. He points to the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court as core classical government buildings most associated with American democracy. The order reflects Shubow’s persistent influence.
The executive order President Trump recently issued that calls for classical architecture to be the preferred style for all federal buildings and U.S. courthouses bears the imposing character and signature of the former real estate developer. But the order itself is the product of the single-minded persistence of one man: Justin Shubow. Shubow, who runs a small Washington, D.C., nonprofit advocacy group known as the National Civic Art Society, has been waiting for this moment for years.
Since joining the NCAS in 2011, Shubow has been telling anyone who will listen that the architecture of American democracy has been subverted for the past 75 years by an elite architectural aesthetic that flies in the face of public preference. Modernist architecture, Shubow argues, has become the de facto standard for new federal buildings, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers established a tradition of using classical architecture in federal buildings.
Collection
[
|
...
]