by Thompson E. Penney, FAIA

“Design activity and political thought are indivisible.”—Thomas Jefferson

The recent deaths of J. Carter Brown and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan have left huge shoes that need to be filled. Both made great contributions to the quality of American life, especially in the arenas of urban design and architecture.

Carter Brown’s intelligence, taste, and rare diplomatic skills as the chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts ensured that design had a powerful and persuasive voice at the table where decisions were made about the look of our nation’s capital. He used his reputation as a critical, discerning eye as a skilled surgeon wields a knife: decisively, in a healing manner, and with a minimum of pain.

The “singular Moynihan,” as one columnist referred to him, could look out the window of his apartment on Pennsylvania Avenue and see a great national Main Street revived and beautiful in large part because of his vision and his tenacity in pursuing that vision. But his passion for design excellence extended far beyond Washington. It embraced and promoted a belief that architecture commissioned by the federal government should reflect this Republic’s highest ideals. His influential report, “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture,” reanimated for our time the legacy of Washington and Jefferson, who understood that government of the people should build in a way that reflects its most cherished values.

Their achievement cannot be understood absent an appreciation of their passion. They were lovers of the beautiful, of quality and craftsmanship. Their love or passion was nothing short of nuclear. Both J. Carter Brown and Senator Moynihan believed, as deeply as anyone can believe, that design matters. Like Churchill, they recognized that what we build not only reflects who we are, it in fact shapes us.

What both men accomplished in shaping our buildings and cities is all the more compelling, because neither Brown nor Moynihan were professional city planners or architects. But both men were “pros” in knowing how to work the political process on behalf of design excellence and the broad public constituency each served.

Politics and design excellence may strike some as strange bedfellows. Yet when a commitment to the democratic process is wedded to a keen understanding of how that process is advanced by design, doors creak open in neighborhood meetings, city hall, the state house, and on Capitol Hill. Excellence finds a voice.

For the moment, the shoes each man filled are, sadly, empty. No one of equal stature has yet emerged on the national scene to carry on a design advocacy tradition as old as Jefferson and Washington. This is both a cause of concern and a great opportunity.

There are no job descriptions as such. Nor do the positions both men served offer financial rewards. The payoff is both more and less tangible. It is beauty, delight, dignity, honor, and service to a reinvigorated public realm. It is knowing that a sound investment into our physical infrastructure has been made that those who come after us will inherit. It is the confidence that the most cherished ideals of our country have been affirmed and passed on to future generations through the most visible reflection of a people’s culture.

In Christopher Wren’s great Cathedral of St. Paul, there is no obvious monument to the architect. Instead, there is a simple inscription in Latin: “Si monumentum requiris circumspice.” (If you would see the man’s monument, look around.) The achievement of J. Carter Brown and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a more elevated and enriching public realm that benefits all of us. The need for such extraordinary “lovers” of design is great. Who among our elected or appointed officials will fill their shoes?

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