NCAS to Co-Sponsor Lecture on The City Beautiful Movement and Washington, D.C. by Justin Shubow

*Proposed Washington Gardens and National Mall in the 1901-1902 McMillan Plan*

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Florida Chapter proudly presents, in collaboration with the Coral Gables Museum and National Civic Art Society, its inaugural Teofilo Victoria Lecture Series.

Lecture III: The City Beautiful Movement and Washington, D.C. by Justin Shubow

Thursday, April 24, 2025, 5:30-7:30pm
Venue: Coral Gables Museum (285 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, Florida)

Cocktail Reception
5:30-6:15pm

Lecture
6:15-7:15pm, with Q&A to follow

1 credit towards the Certificate in Classical Architecture (Elective) | submitted for 1 AIA CES Learning Units

The 1901-1902 McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C. was the first achievement, and arguably the apogee, of the City Beautiful movement. Furthering and reinterpreting the original L’Enfant Plan for the capital, the McMillan Plan replaced the Victorian landscaping of the National Mall with the east-west axis and Monumental Core as we know them: stately classical buildings and memorials and public grounds. The Plan, the creation of the Senate Park Commission chaired by Senator James McMillan, paved the way for and envisioned the Lincoln Memorial, Union Station, the Federal Triangle, and generous public parks. The Plan continues to underpin planning in the District of Columbia to so some degree, though some have called for a McMillan 2.0 to broaden the vision for the next century. What might a neo-City Beautiful plan look like?

Justin Shubow is President of the National Civic Art Society, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. that promotes the classical tradition in public art and architecture. He is former Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that is the aesthetic review board for Washington, D.C., to which he was appointed by the President. Shubow has testified in Congress on topics such as the future of the National Mall and the design of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. He is the author of The Gehry Towers over Eisenhower: The National Civic Art Society Report on the Eisenhower Memorial, a critical examination of the memorial’s competition, design, and agency approval. He has published architectural criticism in numerous outlets, and has delivered talks about architecture around the country and in Europe. Shubow received a B.A. from Columbia University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and completed four years of study in the University of Michigan’s Ph.D. program in philosophy. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation and the Board of Academic Advisors of the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization.

Register HERE.