What Happened to American Housing? Part 2: Classical Design 

I can't wait for the church vlog. Every new church building in my area is an ugly monstrosity, that looks like a concert venue.

Love seeing the post office. So beautiful and wonderful architecture.

Great Vlog! A topic near and dear to my own heart. I often think of the Post Office I grew up with in the Central Valley of CA. That post office--which was repurposed as a fine Italian dining venue (built as part of the WPA effort in the late 1930's), was replaced with a modern structure in early 1970, that one was replaced in the early 80's and that one was replaced in the late 90's and finally another replacemet in the mid 201's. None of the replacements was due to lack of capacity, but they were poorly and hastily built and necessarily literally fell apart. None of the new PO's could hold a candle to the 1930's PO. That 1930 PO that still houses that fine dining Italian restaurant remains a destination that people LOVE to experience when dining. Thanks for your videos!!!

Hi Brent! Your comment in the video about “not having to build a traditional house in order to practice these rules about traditional proportions” (minute 12:08) was exactly what I was hoping you’d be able to get into during your collaboration with that production home builder. Too many people think that by simply adding more or bigger trim around window and door openings, chair rails, crown molding and a column or two means that they now have a beautiful home. I agree with your view that the proportions of the rooms, how they relate to each other, and the proportions of the door and window openings are as much, if not more, important to building a beautiful home than just adding beautiful trimwork. Perhaps you could take a couple of floorplans for a typical modern American home and focus on how changing the proportions of the rooms and their openings can vastly improve not only the functionality of the spaces and how they inter-connect, but also their aesthetics.

I loved your opening to this video. Society has definitely moved away from building beautiful buildings that are a pleasure to look at. Instead they're all cookie cutter designs meant to save money at every corner. So sad.

Great vlog! It does seem that there are more people talking about this subject. Hope for the future.

Your type of content is just what i was looking for, really appreciate it. Greetings from Brazil

Thanks for this series Brent. I'm not a builder but I'm an architectural color consultant, not an interior designer - I'm an architectural color consultant because I love the proportional, well laid out style of architecture that you're talking about in these videos. There's more and more push back against the ugly modernist style of architecture, especially in Europe, let's hope it spreads!

Production is getting better, well done video, the proportions are great ;) Beautiful postal building probably the best kne ive seen. Cant wait for the church video any and thanks for all the book recommendations I love when you subtly drop a book recommendation for those paying extra close attention. Would you have a book recommendation for church buildings? Ive been looking for one but dont think im using the right key words.

You're seeing in architecture the expressions of a society. Gorgeous and meaningful opening statement. You're a craftsman and historian. I'd love to see you do a video on William Levitt, and his "junk" thought process.

I love the steer heads on the capitals! What a wonderful adaptation! And now I am reminded again of architect Andrew Gould. He specializes in designing Orthodox churches in America. He preserves the Byzantine (and Romanesque, rarely) tradition and human scale proportions, but he always makes an attempt to incorporate the styles and materials that are traditional to the area where the church is being built (for example, like lots of timber in Appalachia, or Spanish Mission in Florida and parts of Texas). I also don't believe the brutalist architecture that arose after World War II was a reflection of the American outlook, but rather that it was an outlook imposed upon the American people to change and demoralize them. And it has more or less done its job really well (just look at the state of our society today), but I am exceedingly grateful that there are so many designers, architects, engineers, and builders all across the Western hemisphere who are pushing back against it all and reviving these beautiful, traditional styles (and, in many cases, also traditional materials, which are increasingly revealed to be far better and more robust and longer-lasting than newer, cheaper materials). I think something else that would help our society would be the revival of genuine classical education as our "common core," supplemented by modern mathematics and sciences, of course. There just is no replacement for the learning of logic from Aristotle, rhetoric from Aristotle and Cicero, Pythagorean arithmetic and music from Nicomachus of Gerasa, geometry from Euclid, or astronomy from Claudius Ptolemy. These works did not just pass on their respective philosophical arts to young and maturing minds, but also inculcated them with human virtue and a love of the beautiful. (We also still have Vitruvius' _The Ten Book on Architecture,_ which I believe should still be required study in architectural schools.)

You mentioned banks ... to this day, many small suburban retail locations retain faux "classic" flourishes in order to look "bank-like."

I've always loved old government buildings because of the beautiful detail and classic architecture they expressed. I've never been to that post office in Fort Worth, but it's now on my list to visit. Thanks Brent.

I haven't seen all of your vids so I may be off base in terms of your total message which I think I probably agree with. I believe early on you seem to make a distinction between commercial and residential architecture. The problem is that most residential architecture IS commercial architecture, perhaps not in the way you meant but the house is in a sense a saleable product on the shelf and a commercial good for the developer. Most of us have to take whatever packaged shelter we can afford and don't have the option to be selective.

The great thing about the downtown post office is that it was repurposed successfully for a different use after it was no longer needed as a post office. Buildings today are single purpose driven designed. The 15 yr old glass and aluminum post office will go under the wrecking ball when its no longer needed for that purpose. We got a throw away society so we design throw away buildings

Yup - my new favorite channel. Keep them coming Brent!

Can you point me in the direction of stock home plans that follow these principles?

What you’re describing in this series has happened because of the equalization of society. There used to be a greater differential between lower class homes, middle-class homes, upper class homes, and government/church buildings. Now the quality of materials and the quality of design is basically the same across the board.

Outstanding video of yours. Hopefully those in the trades see and learn from your videos. Residential handyman are ruing America. We need the carpenter's who have pride in their craftsmanship. WOW.... amazing craftsmanship in that post office. You're craftsmanship and honesty is commendable. God bless 🙏

Thanks, Brent. I'm enjoying the content!!!

Near my house is a small shopping center, 5 small stores with a parking lot in front. I don’t know when it was built, probably 50s or 60s. It was faced with brick and had shingled over hang on the sides and the front. Certainly not classical but not terrible either and the overhang served the way a residential front porch does to make the building feel welcoming. The overhang was damaged last year by a delivery truck and rather than repairing the damaged corner, the owner had the whole overhang torn off and stuccoed over the brick so now it’s just an ugly box.

Only a gifted person could make bulls on the columns. He knows the rules, but he has shown that he is one of those who can break them.

I thought the columns looked more corinthian

Fantastic video so informative

For more than two decades, I worked in a government building in Washington, DC. It was one of many built during the Great Depression, when labor and materials were cheap and the government was trying to keep craftsman employed and to create the impression that the federal government was not going to collapse because of a temporary financial problem. Today, many federal employees in DC work in a nondescript building that the government leases from the private sector.

Do architecture students even have to draw the Orders anymore? I've heard students interested in Classical design tend to be shunned these days. Love the very Texan interpretation of the Ionic!

I love watching your commentary, but Does anyone actually know how to build classical buildings? Are they still being built anywhere? It seems to me that designing and building are very different things.

Tradition is the sum of successful innovations.

it does seem during the 30's (the public works projects) this type of building design and construction peeked. Then petered out during the 50's and 60's with modernisms being the finale. It indeed time to bring back beautiful homes and commercial building. don't just build for square footage! build smaller and better.

I cant even imagine what it would take to build something like the Lincoln Memorial today. Cost aside, I would be surprised if the skill set exists today in any kind of exploitable way. You would never be able to get the labor locally. I'm not exactly up on the trade, but I would guess, there are less than a few hundred qualified masons in country building things like that.

I love your work, and the things you say, BUT- I would not call a post office that is built to look like a Greek temple 'honest' building.

Well 100 or 300 years ago, most people lived in small wooden or adobe houses with straw roofs or cramped apartments. The classical houses and buildings that you refer to belonged to the rich, doctors, lawyers, lords, Caesar and other rulers. Today, buying a quality home below 2000sq ft is a challenge. There few, but the smaller the size the more difficult it is to buy a quality home. A middle income person never lived in a high quality house. Even today a middle income person can't afford even a1000 ft quality built house that you describe. And building such a house will cost about 3x as much as buying a new built home of that size from a developer. So I might agree to some extent about your McMansion comment, but not all people value esthetics and fine art. Your average Joe doesn't listen to classical music and doesn't go to theater, so they wont necessarily care for esthetics or craftsmanship and honest materials. And again, price is the main issue and the people who have siding mcmansions prefer them to small brick homes. Besides, rejecting classical and traditional architecture is like rejecting adherence to traditionalism and other crappy things rulers did to others, including the enslaved people.

Hi Brent. I'm sorry your production housing project is not going ahead right now. Hopefully it will soon or you find another opportunity to showcase your talents. I noticed that your last Wednesday design video about the McMansion that you couldn't really fix doesn't seem to be on the playlist anymore. Did you take it down because of the negative comments?

OK, i know you concentrate on design but church finacing has played a big part in churches that look like malls. Local banks stopped lending to banks because they didnt want to be seen forclosing on churches. That started to happwn after the flight from inner cities after the war. It got pushed to one bank mostly and now a few other banks post 2008. Lending eliminated the community involvement or volunteer work. And with very good reason, can you imaging volunteer work with 70's materials???

Let's take a moment to recognize that the post-modern "crumpled" buildings are often super expensive to build. So the idea that classical buildings are too expensive is nonsense.

Unfortunately I never get that feeling walking in my apartment.

The Globalisation of Modern Architecture The Impact of Politics, Economics and Social Change on Architecture and Urban Design Since 1900 By Robert Adam · 2012 a must read

That post office would cost about 20 times what would be appropriate to budget for an administrative building. The old one was terrible for HVAC control and plumbing and electricity. The old buildings also take up a lot of real estate and now we have elevators so we don’t have to use half the space for stairs. The old buildings look nice but are impractical and too expensive.

Tucker Carlson Talked a lot about this as well, what happened to our beautiful Architecture.

Then Labor decided they wanted to be paid a living wage and all this beautiful architecture went away.

I have zero faith in our government. I don't know if the buildings can fix that at this point. But I agree, at one time it was a statement.

Don't agree that the ability to build that way has been lost. Any journeyman carpenter or ironworker can look at a blueprint and build what's on it.........

The thing being expressed by modern buildings is "you (taxpayer/homebuyer) got the maximum amount of building for your money". That 1930s post office would cost a billion dollars to build today, and it would be a political scandal if it even could happen. We have the Sam's Club / Costco mentality applied to square footage. The difference is consumerism and cynicism. In the 1930s people felt they were building an American empire that would endure for 1,000 years. Today we are on a quest to make everything cheaper so that we can have more of everything. The garage is the biggest room in a snout house, and its actual use is to store merchandise dragged home from stores in the back of the SUV which sits outside. I don't know how you sell a person with this mentality on the concept of beauty or quality. It's not exactly minimalism we're after because we're talking about spending more on quality and less on quantity... maybe call it qualitism?

They should really be teaching this in schools and colleges, instead of some useless stuff they teach.

Most of classical buildings were costructed by slaves. It is labour and time consuming manufacturing.