Tag: architecture

The future of our built environment is in our hands. We can reject the alienation of modernism and instead foster spaces that cultivate connection, celebrate history, and create a sense of belonging.

Arched doorways, private courtyards, personal craftsmanship, a sense of place, and almost everything else we love about buildings has been taken away by the modernist ethos intent on depriving the public of a choice, as architects are left unchecked to focus more on how their buildings look in magazines than on how the people using them feel.

Why is it that we can all say that this building works, that this room is just right, that this town is good and pleasing? Why is it that we can all imagine some beautiful and perfect home, complete with all its habits and accouterments, but we can’t say exactly what it is about that home that is so perfect without describing the whole thing?

The idea presiding in Houellebecq is that the worship of individual autonomy destroys love. If love is the meaning of life, then a society bent on autonomy for its members will tend to rob life of meaning. “Once you’ve said it, it sounds obvious,” Houellebecq said in another context, “but I wanted to say it.”

We know now that much of the Notre Dame Cathedral survived and that it will be rebuilt. But while the fire at the Notre...

Some months ago I stood in a basement bookstore in suburban Maryland and pondered a relic of the 1960s, an artifact of dubious worth...

As a localist and a voracious reader, it is only natural that I would be deeply devoted to my local independent bookstore. Here in...