Today, March 13, 2025, Dezeen published an opinion piece by Steven Holl: Stalin, Hitler and Trump all tried to block modernist architecture (originally titled The Beauty of Brutalist Architecture).
“The modernist architectural period was a fertile and very inventive period in American architecture. The optimism for the future, and the expressive architecture of a hopeful unknown, was realized in many significant projects during that time.”
“Architecture, even more directly than other forms of art, leaves an experiential testament of the culture of a civilization. The space, light, material and detail of our public buildings communicate a hope (or a cynicism) to children of future generations.”
“Today, US architects should take up a focus like that of president Kennedy and resist the backwardness, in a spirit aimed at our children in optimistic progressiveness.”
Click here to read the full article on Dezeen.
Text by Steven Holl
Photo: Marcel Breuer, St. John’s Abbey Church, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1961. Image credit: Bobak Ha’Eri