Architecture in America and around the world took a turn for the worse with the advent of Modernism, an ideology born in Europe after World War I that came to dominance after 1945. Modernism has various strands, but most of them unite in rejecting traditional humanistic standards of beauty and harmony, and have little place for inherited knowledge. For much of the 20th Century, and indeed continuing today, Modernism replaced the poetry of design with the spirit of mechanization--as embodied in the steel-and-glass box and Brutalist concrete. As the seminal Modernist architect Le Corbusier said, "A house is a machine for living." We disagree. 

In recent years, Modernism has jumped from one fad to another—from blobitechture to deconstructivism to parametricism to parasitic architecture, and so on. Our most important buildings are too often ugly, even bizarre, structures that have nothing to do with the character of their location, and which show little respect for their users and the public. 

The National Civic Art Society endeavors to help revitalize the humanistic tradition of architecture rejected by Modernism, particularly the unparalleled forms, principles, and standards of classicism.

On May 10, 2019, the National Civic Art Society, together with ICAA-Mid-Atlantic, co-sponsored this lecture by James Stevens Curl on his new book Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism. Curl told the story of the advent of architectural Modernism in the aftermath of World War I, its protagonists, and its astonishing global acceptance after 1945.

At this November 14, 2017 event sponsored by the National Civic Art Society, architects Duo Dickinson and Michael Imber spoke about "Dramatic Cultural Change the Future of Architecture." The speakers addressed such questions as: In a time of increasing globalization, technological growth, and social alienation, what role ought architecture play?