The Architect’s Dream (1840), by Thomas Cole

ADVICE IS POURING into the Office of Urban Policy, President Obama’s new White House shop on city affairs. The first metrosexual in the Oval Office has an in-box stacked high by now with learned papers advocating mass transit, bike paths, light rail, infrastructure repair, smart growth, green architecture, affordable housing, the New Urbanism, historic preservation and other ways to rebuild civic life, not to mention, say, gasoline-tax hikes to pay for it (if that’s necessary anymore).

Allow me to place on this towering pile a slender sheet that advocates traditional architecture.

No, the substitution of cornices, colonnades, architraves, mullions and balustrades for modern architecture’s glass curtain walls and computer-engineered feats of gravity defiance will not solve the nation’s problems. But as a policy tool, traditional architecture could advance many parts of the Obama agenda, not only in urban affairs, housing policy and areas with a more or less direct aesthetic component but in energy, climate, technology and even policies with no obvious aesthetic component whatsoever, such as reform of the corporate and financial systems or even international diplomacy.

For example, Obama wants to pursue policies to cut America’s carbon footprint that offer the biggest bang for the buck. The greenest policy is to reuse old buildings. He should reject high-tech energy-saving devices and “green” structural technologies now in vogue. They merely enable modern architects to inflate costs through ever more unconventional forms and engineering. Instead, the Office of Urban Policy should propose incentives for energy-saving methods embodied in traditional architecture, methods that emphasize practices and technologies predating our dependence on endless low-cost energy.

Such a policy would go backward in time and then innovate forward from a more sustainable base: Go back to windows that open and close, ornament that shields joints from rain, structures with fewer floors and more courtyards, if possible using wood, stone, brick, etc., sourced locally. Innovate with simplicity in mind. Energy savings generated by building (and living!) at lower levels of complexity would shift investment, resources and technology in a more sustainable direction — change that many argue will become necessary as global oil reserves diminish.

The federal government must lead the way. President Bush chose a traditionalist from the University of Notre Dame, Thomas Gordon Smith, as the new chief architect for the General Services Administration, which oversees federal construction. Modernists went berserk and Bush wimped out. If Obama, who wanted to be an architect, seeks real change, let him reappoint Smith and use the predictable firestorm to publicize his change agenda in architecture.

Because of his popularity, Obama could do more to change the direction of architecture in America than Prince Charles has done in Britain. For more than two decades the prince has denounced the Brit Mods and supported new towns featuring traditional design. Change has been slow, but at least the subject is high on the British public agenda. For example, a reality show called Demolition on BBC-4 asked Britons to vote on the buildings they disliked most. Most were modernist, including the new Scottish Parliament Building, by a winner of Britain’s top award for architecture, the Stirling, which, like the Pritzker Prize here, always goes to modernists.

In this country, the American Institute of Architects surveyed Americans in 2007 and found that their favorite buildings are traditional. Although the modernists (and the AIA!) were dismayed, that result was a predictable reflection of public taste. Market-driven house design remains traditional. Modernism dominates corporate, academic, institutional and governmental buildings because their design is so often chosen by committees that scorn public taste.

In recent years, science has learned more about why the public maintains its affection for traditional architecture. Research by Christopher Alexander, Nikos Salingaros and others suggests that humans instinctively prefer traditional building design that reflects the biological coding in the brain’s evolutionary defense mechanisms, based on nature’s fractal proportions, which modernism rejects.

Politics in a democracy requires a conversation about issues phrased in symbolic terms. By embracing this scientific research and its aesthetic implications, Obama could engage a largely untapped well of support from Americans increasingly frustrated by their built environment. Among other things, he could encourage a more responsible corporate ethic by linking selfishness in the executive suite to egotism in corporate headquarters design. Or he could open a new front in diplomacy by helping developing nations address the threat posed by modern architecture. The revival of Western cultural imperialism in the 20th Century can and must be rolled back in the 21st Century. We could be on their side.

The opportunities in traditional architecture for President Obama are limitless. Giving public taste a bigger role in architecture must be worth votes. And if the byproduct were a more beautiful world, that would be change we’ve been waiting for.

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