“In a move likely to upset traditionalists, cheer modernists and widen the gulf between them, the U.S. General Services Administration has bypassed classicist Thomas Gordon Smith for its influential chief architect post and instead has chosen Les Shepherd, a veteran architect at the agency… Controversy erupted in September after The Wall Street Journal reported that Smith [was] set to become the agency’s chief architect. Some modernists charged that Smith’s devotion to traditionalism would set back the GSA’s progress in improving federal design. Some traditionalists cheered the prospect of a return to the nation’s classical design past.”