In 1962, the Kennedy administration established new federal guidelines, including the infamous sentence: “Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government, and not vice versa.” We didn’t know it then, but this is when Washington surrendered its triumphant architectural heritage to ugly, elitist dysfunction.

As Winston Churchill put it, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

Is it any wonder that Americans’ confidence in government has collapsed – and the government itself has grown hopelessly dysfunctional – in the decades since Washington abandoned classical design principles in favor of elite modernist fads and the ugly buildings they produce? (Or that this occurred in tandem with Washington’s abandonment of constitutional restrictions on its power?)

Consider the headquarters of two cabinet agencies. On the left, the Treasury Department, completed in 1842. On the right, the Department of Health and Human Services, built in the 1970s.