The Obamas lead inaugural parade on Pennsylvania Avenue

New York Times photo in Journal archives

BARACK OBAMA spilled the beans at a campaign rally last March 21, in Salem, Ore.: “I can tell you that when I was young I wanted to be an architect, but, um, I . . . [shout from offstage] . . . That was good! Architect of change! I like that!”

If only Obama had not been interrupted by that blockhead, we might know what sort of architect he would have been. Maybe, if we are really lucky and Obama really is smart, we can have not only change we can believe in but change we can see.

Today, many Americans are dissatisfied with their built environment. Obama must try to change architecture from the modernism of the past half a century to a new traditionalism for the future. Is he likely to do so? The tea leaves give us few clues.

On the one hand, given the chance to frame the backdrop of his acceptance speech in Denver last August, Obama chose a classical stage set. He took some ribbing for its supposed pomposity, and classicists furrowed their brows at the colonnade’s prefab clunkiness. But the set contributed to the exaltation of what was then the apogee of his career.

Furthermore, in 2004, when the Obamas wanted to upgrade from a condo to a house, he and Michelle bought a Georgian Revival built in 1910. It was located by his wife, who was a member of the board of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

On the other hand, Obama once attended a lecture (or so claims the lecturer) by Daniel Libeskind, a modernist known for buildings that look like they are about to fall down. If Obama did attend a Libeskind lecture, maybe it was just for laughs.

Let us hope so. Since Thomas Jefferson designed Monticello, the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond and the original buildings of the University of Virginia, no president but Franklin Roosevelt has shown much interest in architecture aside from the occasional monument or federal building. FDR designed a modest hideaway on his Hyde Park estate called Top Cottage in 1939, and several buildings in Dutchess County, N.Y., and Warm Springs, Ga. Other than Jefferson, FDR is the only U.S. president known to have designed a house of his own.

One of FDR’s most enduring legacies has to do with architecture. Among the more notable of his New Deal agencies, the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, designed thousands of post offices, bridges and other structures in traditional styles that ignored the emerging craze for the International Style (early modernism). Many of them survive today because of the intrinsic structural and aesthetic merits of traditional over modern architecture. Its merits represent a sustainability whose resurrection would be much more effective at addressing climate change than the high-tech “gizmo green” fad that is favored by the architecture profession.

The federal government was the last major institution of American society to shift from traditional to modern architecture. Corporate, collegiate and institutional America went first. While the classicism of the Lincoln Memorial (1922) was uncontroversial, that of the Jefferson Memorial (1941) was attacked by modernists then on the rise in the profession. The last major federal buildings of classical style were erected by FDR during the 1930s. Tuesday’s inaugural parade passed them on the way up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

The presidential motorcade also passed the first major federal building built in a classical style since then: the Ronald Reagan Building (1998). In fact, the grace of Pennsylvania Avenue arises from the City Beautiful movement, launched by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Obama’s own Chicago.

The worst building on Pennsylvania is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters, designed in a Brutalist style similar to that of Boston City Hall. If Obama has the eye of an aesthete, as anyone who claims he originally wanted to be an architect surely must, he probably turned his eye from the FBI building to the Department of Justice (1935), a classical building right across the street. If Obama wants to doff his cap to FDR, let him revive New Deal classicism. That would not only create many thousands of jobs, but a physical symbol of the Obama administration to which the public could easily relate.

Three blocks north of the White House is K Street, Lobbyists Row, the worst concentration of modern architecture in the nation’s capital. Part of Obama’s agenda is to push America’s body politic away from K Street toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Using architecture to tell the good guys from the bad guys might help him surmount the predictable resistance.

It is possible that change of great magnitude will want an aesthetic component. It might need a symbolism capable of representing its spirit to the public. Jefferson understood the importance of having an architecture that reflects the nation’s aspirations. Obama should embrace his inner architect by initiating a national conversation about architecture. If he does, he will do far more for his country than he could ever have done as an architect.

David Brussat is a member of The Journal’s editorial board ( dbrussat@projo.com).