“Maintenance is Preservation.” Hugh Miller, FAIA

Opinion On Executive Order for the Classical Style in Federal Buildings

The most important buildings are built of masonry, stone if available, or brick often stuccoed to look like stone. Either way classical components suit the material best.

“Wellness” is the design solution de jour. Not long ago, our “design matters” solutions were energy efficiency, community, sense of place and identity, resilience, safety, security, convenience, much of it aided and abetted by new technology. When we roll all these benefits together in the buildings we design, it makes us feel relevant. Design does matter and so do we.

Having previously considered Metaphysics and Epistemology, this essay deals with the final of the three branches of Classical philosophy: Ethics. In this essay I delve into our relation with Aesthetics—how things ought to appeal to the senses as well as Morality—how ought we be disposed to ourselves, other people, nature and the craft itself.

Ceilings do more than top off rooms. Some let us look into Heaven and others display technology at work.

Tradition carries the experience of the past into the present where innovations make it applicable to current circumstances. This reciprocity protects our liberty, and it guides the design of buildings that serve and protect that liberty.

The World Architecture Festival Building of the Year. And a brewpub.

Columns, piers, and walls traditionally have celebratory toppings. The capitals of the three canonic Greek and two Roman additions are the most familiar, but local variations abound, such as these in Chicago and in Richmond, Virginia.

Having previously considered Metaphysics, this essay deals with the second of the three branches of Classical philosophy: Epistemology, that is to say what constitutes real knowledge for the traditional craftsman.

The Haywood Street Fresco resides in a Central Methodist Church, a sturdy brick building downtown which looks west at the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"Materials and Methods: Windows & Exteriors," the third Traditional Building Conference of 2019 took place at Graylyn Estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Traditional architecture serves the public, common good by using a vestibule to make a clear connection between the public and private realms.

Preserving art, memory and place in historic cemeteries.

Disaster repair is a $27 billion dollar business. And it's making us all anxious.

Pattern and matter...a window into how craftsmen apply techniques upon material to bring their designs to life.

Grange Hall is a place where memories have been made. It’s creaky floors, rough-hewn beams and wavy glass windows have enchanted farmers, fishermen, folk artists and friends for 150 years.

The hidden value of working on small jobs.

Tradition has always guided both vernacular and classical buildings, but now, with architects avoiding drawing on tradition, the present-day vernacular of the builders no longer benefits from innovations within the classical and architects ignore the vernacular’s innovations, with both suffering.

The highest expression of the plasterer's art in the Islamic tradition is achieved with the humblest of tools.

A summary of this year's AIA Conference in Las Vegas.

The concluding essay of a three-part series taking an Eastern perspective on issues facing craftsmen in the Western world.

Resurrecting Notre Dame Cathedral should not be done in haste.

The second of a three part series taking an Eastern perspective on issues facing craftsmen in the Western world.