Design is a Mirror and a Lens

Some buildings don’t just occupy space—they make a statement.

The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh stands like a monument to permanence. Towering over campus, it feels designed to last a thousand years, as if learning itself had been quarried into stone. It says: We are here to endure.

At West Point, the barracks that front the parade ground are cut from the same ideological stone—massive, fortress-like, unapologetically solid. The architecture doesn’t whisper; it commands. Order. Continuity. Permanence.

And then there’s the Rotunda at the University of Virginia—Jefferson’s declaration that education is the heart of the republic. Modeled after the Pantheon, it centers learning both literally and symbolically. Its symmetry, its classical form—these are not aesthetic flourishes, but civic intent made visible: a well-informed citizenry as the surest safeguard against tyranny.

Now, an hour up the road from that domed temple to public virtue, a different architectural story is unfolding.

Today’s data centers make no claim to beauty or welcome. These are not spaces for gathering, reflection, or play. They’re sealed, windowless, bunker-like structures built for one thing: relentless computation. Their size is staggering. Their presence, uninviting. And while some say they’re “just industrial buildings,” enough of them in one place reshape the landscape itself—how we move through it, how it feels to live near it, what kind of future it implies.

Design matters—not because we expect beauty in every box, but because built space reflects what we value. When public land, water, and infrastructure are being retooled to support these facilities, it’s fair to ask: Who benefits? What do these buildings say about permanence, purpose, belonging, and the public good?

People once said the same thing about highways, big-box stores, and billboards: It’s just concrete—who cares? But those choices changed how cities felt, how neighborhoods worked, who got access, and who got left out.

We all live with the consequences of what gets built. We all have a stake in the future it creates.

As with any building boom, everyone wants to be at the party—no one wants to clean up the mess. But it matters. These places aren't designed to endure the future; most will become obsolete before we reach the middle of the century.

And yet they leave a long imprint—on the land, the power grid, the watershed, and the communities around them. What gets built now shapes what follows, long after the servers are scrap.