The post “Terrible is This Place,” on the architectural revolution in one Catholic parish, mentioned the importance of verticality in sacred buildings. The same can be said of domestic architecture and secular public buildings, often geometric boxes that resemble cages today. Verticality, which is not the same as mere height, is one essential aspect of a livable environment, whether in the form of steep-pitched roofs or windows and gables that draw the eye upward. It is no accident that verticality is noticeably missing from our built environment.

We live in a world of deadly horizontality. It exists even in the highest skyscrapers. Modern architecture is an enemy of intimacy, beauty and enthusiasm.

Commenting in that post, Fitzgerald writes:

It is essential traditional architecture be revived both in our sacred structures as well as our homes. Note how the homes the wealthy and powerful today inhabit are barren and cold, empty of life and progeny. The bohemian radicals that transformed architecture have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They ripped architecture from its traditional moorings and erected soul-crushing living machines to foist their radically selfish and self-serving lifestyles, lived in opposition to the family and the traditions designed to nourish and support it, upon the unwitting and unfortunate inhabitants of the very structures they produced.

 I recommend the remainder of Fitzgerald’s comments.

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