The Eric Metaxas Show - Justin Shubow

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Justin Shubow is an American architectural critic who currently serves as the president of the National Civic Art Society

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Folks, I'm often excited to do this program. Today, alas, I'm not. Actually, no, I got that exactly backwards. I'm very excited to do the program today because I have, as my guest, someone I'm only just meeting now. His name is Justin Shubo, and I will allow Justin to help explain to you my audience why I'm excited to talk to him. Justin, first of all, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Well, listen, you let's see if we can help my audience understand because I didn't give you an introduction. What is your current role? In other words,

you were, you're interested in the arts and architecture, and the more I read, the more I said, I can't wait to talk to him, but I want to help my audience understand that with you. So who are you? You know what I'm saying? Like when somebody says, well, who are you? What are you doing? First of all, you are up to be the chairman of the national endowment for the arts, which is amazing. And I want to talk to you about that. So that kind of tells people about you. But just tell us more about your background. I know, for example, Black Mark in your book, you attended Yale Law School. Shame on you. What else? Well, I run the National Civic Art Society.

It's a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington that promotes the classical tradition in public art and architecture. We see that tradition as being unsurpassed in American history. And we can talk about how it goes back to the founding fathers who consciously chose classicism for the core buildings of government in the new nation. But we advocate for classicism in our public buildings, whether that's federal courthouses, also things like train stations. We're interested in the design of Penn Station in New York, for instance. But also our monuments and memorials, most of which have been very bad for decades.

But recently, there has been a new development regarding the World War I Memorial that is possibly demonstrated. a new direction or design. And I should also note that during President Trump's first term, I was chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which is the Esthetic Review Board for Washington, D.C. and-Athetic Review Board. I mean, just the idea that that exists is fascinating to me, because I would get the impression that the swamp in D.C. is against aesthetic. in general is pro-ugly, pro-ugliness, pro-communist, you know, pro-Satan, anti-human, all that good stuff. So the idea that there is such a thing. So you were on that under Trump. Then Biden gets in. What happened when Biden stole the presidency and was able to to mess around with stuff? What happened?

Sure. So President Trump appointed all seven members of the commission who were supporters of classical and tradition. design. This represented a complete sea change in the commission, which had been almost entirely modernist since the World War II, and had approved everything terrible in Washington, whether it's the FBI building, a brutalist building, or the Martin Luther King Memorial, which in my view is socialist, realist, and also entirely secular. But President Trump appointed us to four-year terms as prior commissioner's terms ended. That's the way the commission is set up. for four-year term. However, President Biden, some months after coming into office, removed me and three other commissioners in violation of a four-year term,

and also 110 years of history in which no president had removed a commissioner from the Fine Arts Commission, let alone the commission's chairman. This is the first clue that you're a good guy, that Biden removed you. said, I think I read, that this is not precedented. In other words, you know, look, we know Biden and company are horrible people, but what's fascinating to me, what makes them particularly horrible is their blatant disregard, contempt for tradition, not just aesthetically, but in ending your term on this board, I thought that. That's a particular contempt for tradition in the sense that any other president in the past,

as you just said, would say, you know, let it ride. These are the people that have been appointed. So you almost have to wonder who in his administration would see you a champion of beauty as the enemy. Can you speculate? Maybe you probably can't. I don't know. Well, I don't have to speculate. The White House explained to the press that the reason President Biden removed me and others was because our strong support for classical architecture did not comport with the president's values. Okay. Well, we don't know that the president is competent enough at this point to have values, but the people handling him have values. And what it strikes me, those values are, as I mentioned earlier, I mean, they're pro-modernist. What does that mean? We know what that means. It means that they are

anti-beauty, and they're also anti-Western. They are multicultural hacks who think that anything beautiful and traditional, whether it's British, whether it's, you know, ancient Greek or Roman, they're against that. They're for anything but that. And so, you know, when I heard that you were up for the chairmanship or chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Arts and that you've spouse this kind of stuff, I just thought, I can't wait to get you on the program, because people need to know that Donald Trump appointed people in his first term to restore beauty to our public spaces. That alone is extraordinary. And it's interesting to me that he wasn't celebrated enough for that at the time, because that is itself a radical departure, as you said,

from the lunacy, you know, dating back to the mid-20th century. Well, Trump went beyond just appointing people like me to the Fine Arts Commission. At the end of his term, he issued a revolutionary executive order that reoriented federal architecture from ugly modernism to beautiful, classical, and traditional design. The order looked back to the founding fathers who sought classicism to harken back to democratic antecedents in ancient Greece and Rome. and talked about the grand tradition of American civic architecture that lasted for about 150 years, which, however, was then followed by brutalism, dismal, ugly federal buildings. And in more recent years, we even get some avant-garde designs that look like alien spacecraft that are about to shoot laser beams at you.

I mean, I would ask people to Google the San Francisco federal building to see one of the worst of the worst. And President Trump recognized this problem. And also, like all great states meant throughout history, he understood the importance of architecture for the body politic. This goes as far back as Pericles in the building of the Parthenon in Athens. And then later in the 20th century, you have Winston Churchill giving a speech on the rebuilding of the House of Commons, which had been bombed, saying we shape our buildings thereafter, they shape us. And this executive order required that there be a preference for classical and traditional design, which was widely defined.

So, for instance, classical included Art Deco for federal buildings across the country, buildings that ennoble the United States, and importantly, are beloved by the American people. The order also required that there be input from the general public when design decisions were being made. and so thus there would be an element of democracy and design for the very first time. Biden, noting a theme here, rescinded that order almost immediately after taking office. So this was the general context in which he removed me and the others. He took a very strong stand against this executive order that I think was highly popular with ordinary people. but the architecture establishment, which is entirely modernist, had been lobbying Biden. And then there was the weight of elite opinion like the New York Times editorial board.

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$75 or more. Ship absolutely free. MyPillow.com. Use code, Eric. I'm speaking with Justin Shubo who, and Justin, I'm not pronouncing that correctly. Yes, that's right. Shubo. Rhymes with Kubo chicken.

Yeah. Shubo. Okay, Justin Shubo, you are currently the head of the National Civic Arts Society, and we're talking about beauty, among other things, about aesthetics. And what fascinates me, the larger conversation is that it seems to me that globalist elites, people who have disdain for America on the founder. model. They seem united always in their contempt for the common man, the contempt for beauty. I mean, this goes way past architecture. I mean, I remember when I was at Yale as an undergraduate, for the first time realizing, oh, Longfellow is considered uncool. Like he's too patriotic and his poems are too beautiful. We want something, you know, uh,

bleaker, the illustrations of Norman Rockwell. Oh, that's, you know, that's Passet, that's bourgeois. We want something, you know, hideous, Gustav Klimt or whatever. We just want something that shows, you know, the agony and the dreariness at the center of human existence. And so I remember picking this up as an undergraduate and thinking, oh, this is how the elites think. You have a contempt for beauty, you have a contempt for rhyme, you have a contempt for ornament, you have a contempt for ornament on public buildings. It all has to be ugly, but it's ugliness with a purpose. So it's amazing to me, you know, to be talking to you, somebody who's in the middle of this and that you were there when Trump basically says, yes, we want beautiful public buildings. We want,

you realize that the contempt a lot of these elites have for Trump is because of everything that I have just said. Now, there was anybody who is bourgeois enough to actually like beauty, we don't want him. We want some, you know, proponent of modernism, brutalism, hideousness. It's just fascinating to me. It's just so predictable. Yeah, it's a very sad story. I mean, you may know the Frankfurt school theorist, Theodore Adon, said there can be no poetry

after Auschwitz, which represents a particular worldview about the role of beauty in the arts. And I don't think it's the case that since horrible things have happened in the past, that we can't work to build a more beautiful and better world. So we see this retreat from beauty in both art and architecture and President Trump, to his credit, aimed to turn that around. Well, it's astonishing to me. A lot of this is astonishing to me, but I'm just grateful to think that you are up, potentially to be the chairman of the NEA. Talk about that. How does that work? Who was the chairman in Trump's first term? The chairman at that time was Marianne Carter. And is she a proponent? of the same things that we're talking about here or not so much? I mean, I think it's fair to say that she, you know, shares these values when it comes to

the arts and arts education. Well, I just think that because I live in New York City, I want to talk to you about Penn Station. Anybody who's listening who doesn't know the story of folks in 1916. 64, Penn Station was this glorious, glorious piece of public architecture, more beautiful than Grand Central Terminal. And somebody decided that was the way people thought in the 60s, like, yeah, we want something modern and new. So they tore it down. One of the great tragedies of the 20th century, they tore down this gorgeous, gorgeous building and replaced it with one of the most, like, spectacularly ugly buildings in the history of architecture, the current Penn Station.

And do you know Justin Shubo, the famous quote about that? Yes, from Vincent Scully. One used to enter the city like a god. Now you scuttle in like a rat. I think he said one strode into the old Penn Station like a god. And one scuttles into the new Penn Station like a god. like a rat. And it ties in with the Churchill quote. I mean, we are affected by architecture. We are not bugs or rats. We are human beings and we are ennobled by our surroundings or degraded by our

surroundings. Do you think those proponents of brutalist architecture, which is the worst example of modernism, I guess, close to Frank Gehry? But do you think that they were aware of this? What do you suppose, I mean, because, I mean, I remember when I lived in Boston in the 80s, Boston City Hall is the classic example of this. It is so hideous. It makes you feel like a character in a Kafka story. It makes you feel like a bug. It seems designed to crush the human spirit. Do you suppose that that was intentional on the part of the designers of these hideous buildings? Well, if you go back and look at some of the early brutalists, there was an art show in parallel with brutalism

that had images of like nuclear holocaust and devastation. And so in a sense, you could read these buildings as being, you know, these giant structures of fear, of intimidation. Now, the architects might say, well, we're just showing the world and its harshness and all of its terrible reality. That's why they're using unpleasant materials like exposed, raw concrete. They said that brutalism is an ethic, not an aesthetic.

They had a different agenda than trying to create something beautiful. And in fact, when the modernist architect, Philip Johnson, saw the new Boston City Hall, he said, I love it. It's so ugly. So it gives you a sense that the architects, it's not that they're disagreeing about what is beautiful. They have different criteria as to how to judge a building. And to give you a sense of just how far gone, the architecture profession has gone in the late 70s, the American Institute of Architects did a poll of architects and critics, and they found that Boston City Hall was one of the

top ten buildings in American history, when, of course, it's one of the worst ten. So something went deeply wrong in architecture. And my hope is that, you know, with the rise and return of classicism, we can restore buildings to their true purpose. I mean, after all, great architecture can give

us a sense of the existence of the true, the beautiful, and the good. It creates a sense of meaning in the world as opposed to demoralizing us or even making us feel that the world is meaningless and nihilistic. You will find

contemporary architects openly saying that they are nihilists. So it's not me, you know, finding reds under the... As if they had to be explicit. Right. Right. And they'll say, you know, this notorious Dutch architect, Rem Kulhas, has said that, you know, traditional architecture can give a false sense of existential security. Right. He's not looking to give a sense of security. He wants to destabilize us. Well, I mean, this is... so fascinating, and I did, at least to me, I'm so fascinated by this because there is an ideology here. And again, I've touched on it. You've touched on it. First of all, it is a contempt for the common man. If a working class guy finds something beautiful, we educated elites need to help

him know we reject his beauty as kitsch, as bourgeois, as offensive to the bleak reality that we think he needs to face. We don't want him to have a nice, have a nice happy life in a family and kids and a nice house. We want him to deal with the onks that the velchmerits, you know, at the heart of all creation. And we want to shove that in his face. And basically, that's what modern art is. that's what modern poetry. It tends to be. So the idea that things have gotten so bad that we might be tacking back by the grace of God and because of Donald Trump and because of folks like you, it just gives me tremendous hope because in both of our lifetimes, we've been dealing with ugliness everywhere we go. And as I said, ideologues who hate beauty and who have contempt for beauty.

It's, I just, when we come back, I want to talk to you just about what we might do in four years under Trump with the national endowment for the arts. I know that you're up for the chairmanship. Is that the right term? Chairman C. Chairmanship to be chairman of the N-EA. And it just seems so much good can be done. remember when Dana Joya was the head of it back under Bush. So I'm very, very hopeful and very excited at the prospect of you taking that on. And when we come back, folks, we'll talk more with

Justin Shubo. Don't go away. I'm talking to Justin Shubo. I want to ask you, Justin, when is the head of the NAA chosen and how is he chosen? How does that work? Well, it's unclear what the timing is. And I don't want to be presumptuous. I mean, it would be a true honor to serve. The, you know, the chairman is ultimately selected by the White House and at the very top by President Trump. You know, my hope is that the administration recognizes the importance of the agency that this, This is just not something that can be disposed of because, you know, why should the government be supporting the arts? I mean, admittedly, for a long time, Republicans have called for eliminating the agency.

Some of them can remember these extremely controversial works of art that the N.E. A supported in the late 1980s, one of them called Piss Christ, to give people a sense of what we're talking about. But I think the bigger issue is that Republicans don't see the NEA as producing great art. You know, you mentioned Dana Joya, who ran the N.A. under George W. Bush, he said a great nation deserves great art. And I could not agree more. The highest art is that which is beautiful, profound, or moving. What we need is a cultural renewal of Renaissance in America, since after all, you go to a contemporary art museum. that is not what you're finding. And the NIA, I would like to see play a role in that.

Well, again, what we're talking about, you know, is the left. The left in the West, they're ideological. They hate beauty. They have contempt, as I said, for the common man. And they seem to be, you know, referencing Philip Johnson. They love what's ugly. I mean, in short, they're insane. they're anti-human, they feel, I mean, I guess because they are, you know, coddled elites,

they feel that, you know, we need to suffer more. We shouldn't be ennobled or entranced by architecture and art. We need to suffer. When we look at something, you know, we need to think about bleak things or about the nihilism. that we need to be nihilists in a sense. You know, so they're pushing an ideology. And it is, it's ugly, literally ugly and metaphorically ugly. And that's what we've been dealing with.

So again, the idea that we might have somebody like you heading up the NEA, who's a proponent of actual beauty, what could you do as the head of the NEA? Because I'm not aware of what is possible within that post. Sure. So one thing that I would like to do is to create an initiative celebrating the grand tradition of American civic architecture going back to the founders, not just the White House and Capitol, but the Virginia Capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson that is based on an ancient Roman temple. And that tradition lasted all the way up until the 20th century, culminating in part with Penn Station, as you mentioned. I mean, Langston Hughes wrote

a poem about Penn Station in which he compared it to a cathedral calling it a bulwark for the soul. So I would love to see that tradition fostered and continued through an initiative at the NIA. And architecture is also, you know, a really interesting thing for the government to get behind since it cuts through the alleged divide between high culture and common culture. since after all, architects are highly educated, sophisticated people, ideally educated in the right practices and principles, you know, building for the ages. But at the same time, when it comes to public buildings, the audience are ordinary people. They are the ones who use these buildings and who ideally appreciate them. And so this is something that we can all get behind.

The, we keep mentioning Penn Station. So Penn Station, the current Penn Station is one of the ugliest things. I mean, it's mind-blowing. I would rather get on a plane and fly to D.C., and I do, rather than have to go to Penn Station and take the train. It is so hideous and crushing to the soul that it's kind of amazing. There's now something called Moynihan Train Hall. I'm friends with the daughter of former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and she had a hand in the creation of the Moynihan train hall, which is definitely a step in the right direction. But are you suggesting that much more could be done, that President Trump and the federal government could be involved in creating something really beautiful with the current Penn Station?

Yes. My organization for a number of years now has been advocating for a number of years now. building a new classical Penn Station as grand as the original that was built in 1910 and demolished in the 1960s. There is an incredible opportunity here when President Trump announced the appointment of Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation. He said that Duffy will, you know, prioritize competency, excellence, and so on. But he also said beauty in our infrastructure, including such things. as airports. And, you know, President Trump also said at CPAC in 2003, we will get rid of bad and ugly buildings and build in the classical style of Western civilization. And immediately after the

election, he had a cordial phone call with New York's governor, Kathy Hochle, in which he said he wanted to make Penn Station beautiful again. So it could be that the stars are aligning that President Trump can see that we can build a train station in New York that would be of incredible symbolic importance. We're not just, this is not just a transportation depot. Building a new classical Penn Station would be up there with the reconstruction of Notre Dame in France. Okay.

Hang on, folks. We'll be right back talking to Justin Shubo. And in case you're wondering, I think Justin Shubo would make a crackerjack, spectacular choice as the head, as the new head of the. and I hope President Trump, who I know listens to this program religiously, will heed my cry. It's interesting, Justin, you know, it gives me great hope that Trump, President Trump, cares about these things, because if you think about it, the hostile left has always tried to paint him. I'm thinking of Spy Magazine in the 80s, you know, as a, as a Bulgarian.

And the reality is it is they who are the vulgarians. It is they who have contempt for beauty and goodness and truth who sneer at the ideas of goodness and beauty and truth. The irony that Trump should be a proponent of beauty in public life is absolutely fascinating to me. I just, I marvel at it. It seems every day I'm amazed by something else. This to me is, you know, not just amazing, but just gives me tremendous hope for the, for the country.

And what you were just saying, but the possibility of creating a gorgeous Penn Station of taking action along these lines. It's, it really does make me think that we could be entering a golden age of America, which, you know, in my lifetime, it's been hard to conceive of such. thing. But it seems to me that we may yet hope. Yeah, I think there is a great deal of optimism about culture in the coming administration. Instead of thinking, oh, you know, the NIA is pointless or the National Endowment for the Humanities is pointless, there is going to be an agenda, make America beautiful again. Let's build buildings, monuments, memorials that redound to the greatness. of American civilization. I mean, Trump is a builder, and he also has his pulse, his finger on the pulse

of the American people. He knows what is popular. He knows what will be of lasting value. And I think that is why he is getting so involved in this area. Well, as I say, it gives me tremendous hope for the nation and for the world. And I think, you know, when we talk about places like like Penn Station, the idea that he would insert himself in things that are not inside Washington, D.C., but that are around the country, that he would use the power of the presidency to do that kind of stuff really is wonderful. So I know that architecture is your focus, but if you're the head of the N.E.A, you'd be able to do all kinds of stuff. I remember Dana Joya was trying to get Shakespeare, you know, more popular. I mean, really resurrecting.

protecting, you know, the greatest hits of the West would be good for everybody. And I'm astonished at the cultural ignorance of the current younger generations. It's really horrifying and sad. And so it seems that you could do a lot more beyond architecture if you were the head of the NEA. Oh, yeah. I don't want to just pretend that we're talking about architecture here. Dana Joya, not just that he facilitate Shakespeare throughout the country, but he also created a wonderful initiative called the Big Read to get Americans in their communities to be reading classics of great literature at the same time.

Originally, there were four books selected for the Big Read, books such as Fahrenheit 451 and Zora and Neil Thurston's, their eyes were watching God. But starting under the Obama administration, the books became about identity politics. It was completely splintered with a book for every, you know, demographic and political group. And the books also were trendy contemporary books that have not demonstrated that they will stand the test of time. And that has continued to this day. Were I chairman, I would like to return the big read to its original intent. Well, I have to say, I don't expect you to know this about me, but I was an English major at Yale. I'm a writer. I care about these things very, very deeply. And if there's ever anything I can do

to help you in any of these efforts, please don't hesitate to let me know. I think about this stuff all the time. I think about the culture constantly. We need a reformation in the culture. You're talking about that. We need a reformation in the arts. You know, as I say, the globalist Marxist anti-beautil elites have, you know, since the Armory show of 1911 or whatever it was, have just had tremendous contempt for the good, the true, and the beautiful, and people who love the good of the true and the beautiful. And it's long overdue that we tack back in the direction of the good, the true, and the beautiful. So I'm just thrilled to think about this stuff. I'm more called to media. I think we need similar efforts in the role in the world of media to create TV programs and movies and things that are beautiful and good and true.

You know, we need 100 Frank Capra's. So I'm hopeful along all these lines. And I'm excited at the prospect of your conceivably being the head of the NIA. But I'm sure that even if you're not, you'll be able to do a lot of great stuff. It just seems like you're full of these good ideas. Well, like I said, I'm very optimistic about the potential for culture in the coming administration, whether or not I'm at the NIA. I'd be shocked if Trump does not reissue this executive order on federal architecture.

And that's just day one. I mean, you mentioned the Armory show. Theater Roosevelt actually wrote a review of that show. It's very funny. some of it's serious, some of it kind of comical, but he was very interested in art and architecture, and he said that a national greatness wholly divorced from artistic production is but a one-sided, malformed greatness. And I think that's a great theme to have for the coming administration. Maybe mentioning Teddy Roosevelt makes me think maybe Trump could somehow magically cause the

the statue that had up until two years ago been in front of the National Museum of history in New York City to be restored, the beautiful equestrian statue. It's kind of amazing what we've all lived through. We're out of time. Justin Shubo really a joy to get to know you a little bit. I look forward to more. And I do mean it when I say if there's anything I can do to help along these lines, this is all a great passion for me, and I'm grateful for you and your willingness to serve

if called upon. So thank you, and God bless you. Thanks so much for having me. Folks, before we leave you for the day, we just want to talk about a few other things that, I don't know, that we care about. I keep saying, like, it's God has called me to wake up the church, specifically, you know, people who claim to have faith, to say, like, you're supposed to bring your faith into everything. So in the previous hour, we talked about what is your money doing? You need to take that seriously. Be good steward of your money, which is God's money. Take it out of corporations that are

funding evil things. So I mentioned inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. That's the link. Inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. That's your money. Another big area, which is education, right? So we've told you about the Herzog Foundation. The Herzog Foundation exists to help you educate your kids and your grandkids in a way where they're not being indoctrinated along loony lines, right? So what does that mean? Usually homeschooling or quality, Christ-centered K-12 education, we've got to take that seriously. We can no longer say, well, I don't know, you know, and send them off to public schools that are using your taxpayer money to rob your kids of everything you hope that they would have learned from you. if you want to help and they're there to help, go to Herzog Foundation.com.

Hertzog Foundation is a foundation. They're there to help you. They're not asking for anything from you. HerzogFoundation.com. And their website, I recommend this. Just go there. Readlion.com. R-E-A-D-L-I-O-N.

Readlion.com. Tons of stuff. Readlion.com. And Chris, you were going to say something. Yeah, you know, kind of on the same lines of like, you know, what can we do with our money? What can we do with their time? We are working on, and you feel called, we both feel called to create things that people can watch and things that are part of the culture and that are going to kind of shift the conversation in the same way that, you know, we can shift the focus in conversation with their money on what we spend with Inspire. You know, we want to make things that will shift the conversation in terms of what people are really buying.

and believing in their minds. And so your bestselling book is Atheism Dead. We are turning that into a streaming series, and we're going to be having some folks that will be featured prominently in that series on as guests in the coming months. And also, you know, we're going to be talking about ways that people can get involved and partner with us as we start rolling out episodes, and it's going to be a lot of fun.

I want to say, too, like, I think it's kind of weird because I really believe God said this to me prophetically. now whatever that means. It just means that I, now I could be wrong, but I had a sense like a year ago, two years ago, God's saying some stuff and you're sort of thinking, okay, is this God speaking or is this just my own desires? Or the tacos that you ate, you know, some bad fish. But what I mean is to really dream, because in my whole lifetime, everybody, we've lived in a

world where all the intellectuals or all the smart people say like, oh, there's no God. And I thought, what would it be like to live in a world? world where most people thought, you know what, I don't know if I believe the way you do, but yeah, there's definitely got to be a God because science proves it. Archaeology proves that the Bible is not a collection of folk tales. That's why I wrote the book is atheism dead. If you haven't read it, I recommend it highly. It's easy to read.

There's insane stuff in there. But why am I bringing it up? Because we're making this TV series because I thought, what would it be like if most people could watch it? And it's going to be gorgeous. The trailer is phenomenal. But what if just your average American would watch us and go like, you know what? I had no clue.

I had no clue that science points to God dramatically, not a little bit, dramatically. So I just want to end today just by saying, I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for this country. I'm hopeful for the world. And, you know, we try to highlight this stuff. We try to bring hope, humor, truth to you every day. But is atheism dead? When I wrote that book, I said, I almost can't believe that I'm living in a time where science points to God.

Now, my job is to get that out to most people who don't know it. So you can read the book or you can wait for the TV series. All right, we'll talk to you tomorrow.