THE DRIEHAUS PRIZE for Classical Architecture, in its sixth year, celebrates a pair of architects whose buildings few could name but who have done more for American architecture than the rest of America’s most well-known living architects all rolled into one. Inasmuch as almost all celebrity architects are modernists, this over-the-top accolade may be the understatement of the week.

Most architects whose names Americans recognize (Frank Gehry and all that) are winners of the Pritzker Prize, which since its institution in 1979 has rewarded only architects of the modernist persuasion. The Richard H. Driehaus Prize, which was instituted in 2003, now honors two architects whose names have become increasingly familiar.

Photo courtesy of DPZ

Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany with Alicia and Teddy

AndrÉs Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk met at Princeton, attended the Yale School of Architecture, married, and founded the Miami-based firm of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co. (DPZ). Together, they have led the movement to bring traditional design and planning back to U.S. cities and towns.

The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), which they helped found in 1993, has reacquainted many Americans with the idea that they can live and work in new places that are as attractive as old places. As Duany points out, the “historic districts” that Americans visit as tourists are nothing but typical neighborhoods built before World War II. Because such neighborhoods have been illegal under most city and town zoning since 1950, they are rare, and hence expensive. A movement to build more pretty places will not only revolutionize the American landscape, but will make beautiful living more affordable.

Largely through of the work of DPZ, much of the planning community in America has adopted New Urbanism as the template for city and town design. Duany and Plater-Zyberk are well known in Providence, having returned frequently to help developer Arnold “Buff” Chace Jr. apply New Urbanist principles downtown. DPZ has provided some 300 cities and towns with plans for new or renovated neighborhoods. In the two decades since DPZ’s Seaside, Fla., focused attention on new places with old charm, the concept has been adopted by many firms. CNU’s planning sessions on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina won great applause for the movement.

Next to planners, architects have been far behind the curve in the fight to undo half a century of damage to the nation’s sense of place. Most of the public thinks modern architecture is ugly and baffling, but modern architects don’t care. And why should they? Modernists control the top firms, get almost all the major commissions, edit all of the most influential professional journals, and run all but three of the 50 or so university architecture programs.

For years, I have tried to cast modern architecture in the worst light possible in view of the facts. It has been easy, and fun, but in the process I’m afraid that I’ve tended to focus less attention than I should have on institutions that support a classical alternative to modern architecture and planning.

High among those institutions are the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture — endowed by philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus, who made a fortune as a fund manager in Chicago — and its sponsor, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. Notre Dame is one of just two classicist architecture schools in America. The other is the University of Miami (Fla.) School of Architecture, whose dean since 1996 has been Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Its program embraces not classicism expressly but the New Urbanism, whose roots are essentially classical.

Almost all other architecture schools are generally modernist in scope, except for that of Yale University, whose school of design offers both classicist and modernist porgrams. Its dean since 2003 has been Robert A.M. Stern, who has run Yale’s school with an even-handedness commendable in light of the exclusion of classicism from almost every other school.

Perhaps Bob Stern will be the next Driehaus laureate. He is the only classicist among American celebrity architects, but, reflecting his open-mindedness, a few of his buildings are modernist. With similar openness, Duany and Plater-Zyberk have said that modernist as well as traditional architecture can be appropriate for New Urbanist projects. Perhaps, but letting modern architecture in would undermine the movement’s appeal to the public. Have any Pritzker Prize winners condescended to design anything in a classical style?

Try to imagine a city of buildings by Pritzker winners and another city of buildings by Driehaus winners: a modernist city and a classical city. While the Pritzker civitas might have more “Wowee!,” “Zowee!” and “Powee!,” most people would want to live in the city designed by Driehaus laureates LÉon Krier (2003), Demetri Porphyrios (2004), Quinlan Terry (2005), Allan Greenberg (2006), Jaquelin Robertson (2007) and DPZ. The public intuitively prefers a classical aesthetic sensibility. If the architecture biz ever comes around, the Driehaus Prize and Notre Dame will be in the first rank of institutions that Americans can thank.

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