Justin Shubow joins John Hirschauer to discuss the future of the National Endowment for the Arts under the second Trump administration.
Audio Transcript
John Hirschauer: Welcome back to the 10 Blocks Podcast. This is John Hirschauer, Associate Editor of City Journal. Joining me on the show today is Justin Shubow.
Justin is the president of the National Civic Arts Society, a nonprofit organization that promotes the classical and humanistic tradition in public art and architecture. He was previously the chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that he was appointed to lead during the first Trump administration. Today he joins us to discuss the future of public architecture in a second Trump term. Justin, thank you for joining the 10 Blocks Podcast.
Justin Shubow: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
John Hirschauer: So, both the New York Times and NPR have called you, “one of modern architecture’s biggest critics.” So I’ll start with the obvious question, why are you critical of modern architecture?
Justin Shubow: Well, first just to step back, architecture is extremely important. It builds the world in which we live, it is unavoidable in a way say a painting on a museum wall is not or a novel. You have to live in and surrounded by architecture, and so therefore it has a moral or political component.
Architecture can uplift us, it can beautify the environment, it can make us feel that this is a world that was designed for beings made like us. At the same time, architecture if done badly can demoralize us, it can make the world an ugly place, make the world feel meaningless. So architecture plays an incredible role in the culture, and in my view, starting very much after World War II in America, architecture took a turn for the worse when modernism became hegemonic.
John Hirschauer: In his first term, kind of responding to that hegemonic takeover, Donald Trump published an executive order promoting beautiful federal civic architecture, which required, with some exceptions, that federal buildings be built in one of several classical styles. It prompted a massive pushback from the architectural establishment as you know. Why do you think architects felt so threatened by that executive order?
Justin Shubow: Well, first one has to look going back to the founding of this country, when the founders, especially George Washington and Thomas Jefferson consciously sought classical architecture for the core buildings of government in the new capital. They wished to hearken back to ancient Rome and Greece, the antecessors of our modern democracy, and they saw classical architecture as being time-honored and timeless. They set a trend that essentially lasted for 150 years with later buildings in the 20th century, including things like the U.S. Supreme Court.
So I think for Americans, classical architecture is fundamentally the architecture of American democracy, but all of that changed after World War II when our federal buildings became almost entirely all modernist, ugly, dispiriting, many of them were brutalist. Just really some obnoxious designs that are not befitting of who we are as a people, and they do not speak to the sorts of people we wish to be.
President Trump took revolutionary action in reorienting federal architecture from modernism to classical and traditional design. The executive order did not require that there be classical and traditional design across the country, but rather said that there should be special regard for it, and those terms were also very broadly defined. So for instance, classical included Art Deco and traditional included all sorts of historic styles such as Pueblo Revival or Romanesque. I’m proud to say that my organization instigated the executive order and had a hand in drafting it.
When Trump issued it, there was an explosive controversy. You have to understand that the art and architecture establishment is entirely dominated by modernists, and they could see their power slipping away. They have long had an ideological agenda to shape the country as they wish to see it, and they did not want their power being stripped away.
At the same time, there was a lot of money at stake since these buildings, a single courthouse can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and you add it all up, the modernist architects have a lot to lose. But it was not just the architectural establishment that was outraged, so too were cultural mandarins like the editorial board of the New York Times.
They published an editorial titled “What’s So Great About Fake Roman Temples?” It was an attack on contemporary classical architecture saying, well, the founders had to reach back to the past, but we no longer need to wear borrowed clothes. I mean, I would say in response to the Times, do they think that the Supreme Court is a fake Roman temple or is the U.S. Capitol itself fake? Because obviously these buildings are not 2,000 years old.
So, there was this incredible firestorm. There was a piece in The New Republic Magazine, a liberal publication basically trying to associate classical architecture with white supremacy and reactionary politics. But a little bit later, The New Republic did manage to publish an article titled “The Non-Fascist Case for Classical Architecture,” so it was a big relief that one could like classical architecture without being fascist.
I think these arguments against classical architecture are really specious. If you ask ordinary Americans, when they look at a classical public building, they do not see racist architecture. In fact, my organization did a survey by the Harris Poll, a highly reputable non-partisan surveying company, and we found in 2020 that the vast majority of the Americans surveyed, 72 percent preferred classical and traditional architecture for federal buildings and U.S. courthouses.
Not only was there such a wide spread, but there were wide majorities across all demographic groups, including gender, race, socio-economic and political party affiliation with 73 of Republicans preferring tradition and 70 percent of Democrats. So I think for ordinary people this is not a controversial issue, and President Trump being a master builder understood that.
John Hirschauer: On that ideological component to the push back to the executive order, there’s an argument that I know for certain you’ve encountered. Putting it crudely, it goes a little like fascists in the 20th century had good taste, so we can’t build nice things anymore. That’s maybe crude and maybe you don’t think the fascists had good taste, but putting it a little more charitably, the idea is that objective standards of beauty or the notion that there are objective standards of beauty quashes something in the artistic spirit.
How do you, number one, respond to that argument? And number two, do you think there’s more going on with the ideological side of the pushback to the type of move you want to see federal architecture make?
Justin Shubow: Well, as I was saying, I think for the vast majority of people, when they see a beautiful classical building, they do not think that it’s reactionary, they do not think that it’s the architecture of white supremacy. In fact, it was at the U.S. Supreme Court that all sorts of anti-discrimination decisions were handed down from. When people look at the U.S. Capitol building, they see a temple to democracy. They don’t see a building that needs to be torn down if cost were no object in the same way that some people have called for tearing down certain statues.
So I don’t think this is genuinely controversial for ordinary people, but for certain elites, yeah, they do see that. In the words of the modernist architect Mies van der Rohe, architecture is the true battleground of the spirit. To build in a traditional way is a way of showing that you have respect for the past. It’s a way of saying that what we were doing today is continuous with what happened before, and some of the things that happened in the past were good and deserve to be perpetuated. We’re not trying to start from the Year Zero. We are not led by Pol Pot and we don’t want Pol Pot style architecture.
John Hirschauer: Taking a step back just to kind of assess what the federal role looks like in architecture, what did your day-to-day responsibilities look like as chairman of the Commission on Fine Arts?
Justin Shubow: So, the commission is the Aesthetic Review Board for Washington, D.C. It’s made up of seven presidential appointees who I like to say are the aesthetic guardians of the city. The commission was created in 1910 to steward the McMillan Plan, which is from 1901, which is what created the National Mall in Monumental Core as we know it, which is an entirely classical ensemble.
So the Commission of Fine Arts was intended to promote this classical plan for the city, which is what has created the Washington, D.C. that we know today. But unfortunately, starting after World War II, the commission became almost completely modernist in orientation and approved all of the monstrosities that we see in Washington, D.C., whether it’s the FBI headquarters, a brutalist building that I like to call the Ministry of Fear, or the Martin Luther King Memorial, a socialist realist design that would not look out of place in communist China. So the commission in many ways had lost its way, but President Trump to his credit appointed me and ultimately six other commissioners, all of us were proponents of classical and traditional design.
Now, surprisingly or not, not that long after taking office, President Biden removed me and three other commissioners in violation of our four-year term. In the history of the commission, no president had ever removed a commissioner, let alone the chairman, and yet here Biden went ahead and removed a majority and replaced us with modernists. The White House was asked, well, why did President Biden do this? The White House said that he removed us since our strong support for classical architecture did not comport with the president’s values. Here he is making this an ideological issue, and the Wall Street Journal published an editorial about what happened titled “Biden’s Culture-War Architecture.”
John Hirschauer: To kind of reorient the commission under a second Trump term, what direction do you think the president should take the commission in his second term?
Justin Shubow: Well, I would like to see President Trump appoint commissioners who understand that Washington, D.C. was intended to be a classical city by the founders. It grew into a magnificent classical city over the decades, especially thanks to the McMillan Plan, and we need to continue that tradition well into the next century.
We need to have monuments and memorials that are beautiful, that are legible, that are appreciated by ordinary people. We don’t want inscrutable inkblots. A great monument should be a statement or an exclamation, and the Fine Arts Commission can help guide not just the architecture of Washington, D.C., but the public art as well.
John Hirschauer: Something that might be of particular interest to our New York audience, President Trump has reportedly expressed interest in making Penn Station, “beautiful again.” Your organization has advocated for rebuilding the original station as it was designed. What would an ideal future for Penn Station look like in your view?
Justin Shubow: So, the original Penn Station was a magnificent classical design constructed in 1910. It had a soaring stone train hall inspired by the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla from Rome, it had this magnificent metal and glass train shed. The station was so inspiring that Langston Hughes wrote an entire poem about it called Pennsylvania Station, comparing it to a basilica and saying it was a bulwark for the soul.
We have long been advocating for a new classical Penn Station that is inspired by the original, and it would be a dream come true for President Trump to get involved and to ensure that a fantastic station gets built. I mean, it’s important to understand, Trump has shown himself in New York as someone who can get things done when no one else can do them.
A case in point is Wollman Rink, the ice skating rink in Central Park. New York City for years and years could not get that rink restored, Trump was able to do it in just a couple of months. Now New Yorkers and visitors to New York have to put up with the current Penn Station, which is this dank, depressing hole in the ground on top of which squats Madison Square Garden, and it’s an urgent problem. It’s not just an aesthetic nightmare, but it’s also dangerous. President Trump could create a kind of Operation Warp Speed for Penn Station, and we would like to see that design be guided by the original Beaux-Arts designed by McKim, Mead and White.
John Hirschauer: According to sources, you’re being considered to chair the National Endowment for the Arts. What specific goals would you aim to achieve were you appointed to that post?
Justin Shubow: Well, I don’t want to be presumptuous about serving in the administration, but it would be a true honor and privilege. To begin, one must understand that the NEA is an independent federal agency that is the country’s largest funder of the arts and arts education. Its annual budget is $210 million, and the agency aims to be a catalyst of public and private support for the arts.
My vision for the NEA comes from Dana Gioia, the masterful poet and translator who served as NEA chairman under President George W. Bush. Gioia said, “A great nation deserves great art,” and I fervently agree. I believe the agency needs major change. For many years, Republican politicians have called for eliminating the NEA, but I think that is because they don’t believe the agency has been fostering great art, and I would do my best to change that. The way I see it, and I hope this is not controversial, the highest art is that which is beautiful, profound, and/or moving. It reflects the human condition.
When I go into a contemporary art museum today, I have to say I don’t often see much that is beautiful, profound or moving, and the NEA needs to do its part to fix that. I believe this country needs a cultural and artistic renaissance, and National Endowment for the Arts ought to play a key role in that. I mean, the timing is perfect. There’s tremendous opportunity for the NEA to play an important role in the Semiquincentennial, boy, it’s a mouthful, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
As part of America250, I’d like to create an initiative celebrating and fostering the grand tradition of beautiful American civic architecture, architecture that goes back to the founding. That includes everything from the Virginia Capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson to the original Penn Station in New York by McKim, Mead and White.
It’s also worth noting that after the election, President Trump announced he’ll be issuing an executive order, like the one he issued in his first term, to build a garden of American heroes. The garden will feature statues of numerous great figures from American history, and the order specifically requires that the NEA chairman play a role.
Were I chairman, I’d hope that the agency would help ensure a very high artistic quality for the artwork. The last thing we want are statues that are kitsch or mannequins. I mean, think for instance of the numerous recent statues of athletes outside sports stadiums that have been very badly done. There are really awful ones of Dwayne Wade as Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, but then you have classically trained sculptors out there who could do an excellent job.
I’d also say that as NEA chairman, I would like to devote attention to The Big Read, an initiative started by Dana Gioia that encourages communities to read the same book simultaneously. The original book selections under Gioia were timeless classic novels such as Fahrenheit 451 and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Starting under President Obama, however, the reading selections became much more focused on trendy contemporary books with an implicit, if not explicit emphasis on identity politics. I’d like to return The Big Read to its original intent.
John Hirschauer: Well, thank you Justin very much for coming on the show. We appreciate you coming on 10 Blocks. You can find more of Justin’s work on his website, shubow.com, and you can also find him on X @justinshubow. You can find City Journal on X as well @cityjournal and on Instagram @cityjournal_mi. And as always, if you like what you heard on today’s podcast, please give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Thanks again, Justin.
Justin Shubow: Thanks for having me.
Photo by Bloomberg Creative/Getty Images