epiminondas writes:

Palladio Award Winner

Andrea Palladio was one of the greatest architects the world has ever known.  He was born in Padua in 1508 and died near Traviso in 1580.  He is mainly known for the 23 surviving villas he designed which are scattered about the Veneto, and which are tourist magnets for Renaissance enthusiasts around the world. Your trusty correspondent has personally visited about half of them.  They are truly mind-boggling.

So it’s really no surprise to learn that there are annual awards now given for classical architecture named for Signor Palladio.  Among this year’s winners is a federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  Although the proportions and some of the details are severely Doric, you can still feel the presence of the modern era in the way the buildings are shorn of ornament.  However, the construction is so cleverly designed and the colors so warm and inviting, that you don’t notice that.  Personally, I would like to see more fountains and statuary (not modernist junk) scattered around to soften the effect.  But I like this and am heartened to see that our society still reveres its history.  I have always maintained that no society can long survive untethered from its own past.  Perhaps we’re not ready to roll over quite yet.