The National Cathedral in Washington, DC

I am very fond of the National Cathedral in Washington. Not only does it look like a medieval cathedral, it was built like one.

Construction of the cathedral took 84 years (1907 to 1991), and it relies on medieval engineering: those stone pillars and vaults really hold up the building. Structural steel was used only in the roof trusses, which were wooden in medieval cathedrals and present a serious fire hazard.

The cathedral is a strange beast in several ways. It is known as the "National" cathedral but it is an Episcopal church, and thus harks back to the days when America had a national elite that was largely Episcopalian or Congregationalist.

It is also a copy, plain and simple, of an English cathedral. It was built in a modified Gothic style using many elements perfected in the 1220s. Looking at pictures the other day, it occurred to me how odd it is for Americans, circa 1900, to express some national purpose by copying architectural forms developed across the ocean 700 years before. Don't we have our own style? In a sense we do, but most Americans dislike modernism and find this neogothic edifice more appealing than anything that might be called "modern." (Me, too.) I have had similar thoughts about the neoclassical buildings on the mall; our monuments to Lincoln and Jefferson are copies of ancient Roman monuments to Jupiter and Mars. There is something odd about that.

Anyway, the cathedral is a fine building with many wonderful details. It has some nice stained glass, most of it fairly traditional.

But there is also the famous space window, with its embedded moon rock.

The ironwork is spectacular.

The best thing about it is the stone carving, a whole menagerie of gargoyles and grotesques. People love these creatures, all shaped by hand. They represent to me what is missing from modernism. They engage people and delight them. They are interesting. A vast geometric shape in glass and steel can be attractive from a distance, and some modernism achieves a sort of meditative beauty. But up close it is all cold, sterile, and boring. The National Cathedral looks pretty good from a distance, and up close it is simply wonderful.