Such classical architects are represented heavily in New Urbanism, found especially in the Florida Panhandle towns of Seaside and Alys Beach. Such architects are more common than they used to be, but are still a tiny minority in an era when most residential design is heinous McMansions or pseudo-“French Eclectic” mishmashes, and most commercial design is modernist (though trending today away from its worst forms of High Modernism and Brutalism).

Usually, it means an architect who thinks there are objectively aesthetically superior ways to design houses, that it is possible to know and practice what makes those ways superior, but that those methods and abilities of creating superior designs have been mostly lost in a sea of ugliness. And as we move toward actually starting to build our new house, I have read and re-absorbed this book, confirming that we have, indeed, “gotten our house right.” No small part of my confidence in that design success is due to Cusato’s work.Ĭusato is a “classical architect.” In context, that means an architect who appreciates and is guided by traditional architecture generally (roughly prior to 1920), and who is particularly focused on Greek and Roman exemplars, especially the classical “orders,” as the guideposts for much of that design. It informed a lot of our thinking and it guided our selection of architects. Before we began the design process, in 2012, I read and absorbed this book. But we have spent the past three years working with classical architects to design what is, presumably, the final house we will live in. I also recommend it, though I am not in any way comparable to Prince Charles. And the Prince enthusiastically recommends this book, which should mean something. (You can tell that he’s good on architecture from the vicious attacks on him conducted by the priests of Modernism.) He famously compared part of the new British Library to an academy for secret policemen. But he is an excellent architectural expert and critic, and one of the first to push back against the fetid tide of architectural Modernism. How can you go wrong with an architecture book where the forward is written by Prince Charles? Yes, the Prince is a political imbecile.

Marianne cusato books