[This essay was originally published in Traditional Building, September 2019]
How should our buildings look today?
Why do we choose to make our buildings look one way and not another? How should our buildings look? Two different but related questions, the answers to which are many and difficult to tease apart, for architecture operates on many levels.
Today, many who regard themselves as classicists all too often answer “how should our buildings look” with a resounding: classically correct! This is understandable as 21st century classicism is still operating in recovery mode. The lacuna of what we simplistically call modernism nearly broke the chain of tradition preceding it. In this regard, we are not unlike our Renaissance predecessors.
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