Design is a Mirror and a Lens

Some buildings don’t just occupy space—they proclaim something. The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh stands like a monument to permanence. Towering above 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, unapologetic in their solidity. Their 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 puts the pursuit of knowledge at the center—literally and symbolically. Its symmetry and classical references anchor not just a campus, but an idea: that a well-informed citizenry is the surest safeguard against tyranny.

An hour up the road from the UVA Rotunda—Jefferson’s domed temple to knowledge and public virtue—a very different architectural story is being carved into the land. Where the Rotunda was built to welcome, to inspire, to center community and scholarship, today’s data centers rise with no such pretense. These are not spaces for gathering or contemplation. They are sealed fortresses of function—vast, windowless, bunker-like structures devoted to endless computation. Their scale is staggering. Their presence is uninviting. Their design, far from neutral, speaks volumes. It reflects a worldview that prioritizes efficiency, secrecy, and centralized control over openness, permanence, or civic meaning.

What are these sprawling, inaccessible megastructures—quietly humming at the edge of town—saying about their role in our world?

What is their design telling us about their destiny?

And more importantly: what are they telling us about ours?

And more unsettling still:

What are they telling us about our destiny?

These buildings don’t welcome visitors. They don’t celebrate civic life. They don’t invite wonder or pride. They are built for containment, not community. Efficiency, not expression. Control, not curiosity.

In their silence and scale, they whisper something deeper than utility:

This is where the future lives now—out of sight, out of reach, and owned by someone else.