For more than half a century, Henry Hope Reed has been the foremost spokesman for the cause of tradition in civic design. His focus has not been narrowly architectural; rather it has embraced the unity of the arts as the key to grandeur in the public realm.
After graduation from Harvard College and studies at the Ecole du Louvre, Reed became an instructor in city planning at Yale, working with the distinguished scholar Christopher Tunnard. While assisting Tunnard with his admirable critical history of civic design, "The City of Man" (1953), Reed published a polemical essay, "Monumental Architecture," in the Summer 1952 issue of "Perspecta," the Yale architecture journal. This brilliant essay was very likely the first postwar harbinger of the resurgence of classical architecture in the United States.
Reed’s best-known book, "The Golden City" (1959), combines a devastating photographic comparison of traditional and modernist buildings with an acute analysis of modernist intellectual pathologies. In 1968, Reed co-founded Classical America, which recently merged with the Institute of Classical Architecture. Among its many contributions, Classical America is known for its series of books on art and architecture, which includes important new titles as well as others rescued from oblivion. A native New Yorker, Reed is also known for the walking tours of great Gotham buildings he initiated under the auspices of the Municipal Art Society and continued under Classical America’s.
Reed’s most recent book, "The United States Capitol: Its Architecture and Decoration," has just been published by W.W. Norton & Company.
- Catesby Leigh