Professor Rybczynski is right to credit Daniel Patrick Moynihan with raising the standards for federal architecture, but he is wrong to dismiss President Kennedy's interest in the topic. As William Walton made clear in his interviews for the Kennedy Presidential Library, Kennedy was personally concerned with reshaping the Commission for Fine Arts and preserving the historic architecture at Lafayette Square, even getting down on the floor to play with architectural models.

Johnson and Nixon were less interested in individual buildings, but they did care about the urban built environment far more than any presidents since. See my book, The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro.

Zachary Schrag

George Mason University