When Government Gets Architecture Right

"Rather than being commissioned by the wealthy trustees of arts institutions, [two of the most significant buildings to rise this year in the United States] were financed by cost-conscious government bureaucrats who grasped the role that architecture plays in the public welfare.

The two buildings, the Seattle Central Library and the Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, don't approach the sublime compositional delicacy of, say, the new Museum of Modern Art, and neither is as wildly exuberant as last year's Walt Disney Concert Hall. But they might have done more to drag architecture out of its high-culture ghetto."

Thanks to Profession of New Urbanism Listserv