Ornament is important to urban buildings, especially large ones. It helps to break up overwhelming masses and gives pedestrians something more their scale at which to look. Thanks to ornament, no one calls old buildings “boxes” even when they are box shaped. The presence of ornament is one of the reasons why most normal people think old architecture is beautiful.

One of the arguments sometimes brought up by modernists in the grand debate over architecture is that it’s impossible to produce good looking ornament in the world of contemporary design and construction. We don’t use the right materials anymore, and our workers don’t have the necessary skills. So some say.

This new building in Clarendon would seem to prove them wrong.