Henry Hope Reed

The Golden City

A pictorial argument in the controversy over classical vs. Modern fashion in American architecture and other arts.

In this sharply written and copiously illustrated survey of the American architectural scene, Henry Hope Reed takes up the controversy between the "Modern" and the "classical" tradition in architecture, and presents an eloquent denunciation of the so-called Modern style.

Modern building, Reed asserts, is at best an engineering rather than artistic archievement. To the twentieth-century architect, "progress" has come to mean the rebellious departure from the classical tradition, and "functional" and "efficient" have replaced "beautiful." Today's "form follows function" theory can be seen everywhere: from New York City's streets—where denuded galvanized-iron lightpoles have supplanted R. R. Bowker's handsome bishop's-crook lampposts—to public buildings, shops, small towns and country houses. But Reed predicts the return to a new classical period of the Golden City—in which sculpture, painting, and architecture are again intrinsic parts of every building. In a new foreword for this edition, he assesses the accelerating trend toward architectural conservation and the preservation of Classical America.