Wynand shows Roark’s sketch of their home to Dominique, who knows the designer without seeing the signature or asking his name. When he tells her that Roark is coming that night to dinner, Dominique is stunned but manages not to show it. At the meal, Dominique is angered by Wynand’s close familiarity with Roark and by Roark’s obvious respect and affection for her husband. She mentions the Stoddard Temple, to remind Wynand that he has no right to Roark’s friendship, but when Wynand responds with the appropriate guilt Roark tells him sincerely to forget that incident. Dominique, in love with Roark but married to Wynand, is tortured by their growing closeness. When Wynand visits Roark’s office and goes to dinner with him alone, Dominique must acknowledge that, under the present circumstances, she has no right to visit Roark but Gail Wynand does.
Wynand summons Toohey into his office and informs him that he is forbidden to write one word about Roark in The Banner. Toohey smiles easily and replies that, at present, he has no need to write about Howard Roark.
Peter Keating’s career is slipping. Toohey pushes Gus Webb, and Keating has been replaced by a newer fad. In desperation, Keating comes to Toohey, the power behind a new government housing project, Cortlandt Homes. Toohey gives Keating the specifications, but Keating knows he can’t do it. He asks Roark to design it for him and to allow him to put his name on it. Roark agrees on one condition: that it be erected exactly as he designs it.
Roark designs Cortlandt; his plan solves the structural problems and is accepted. As construction begins, he and Wynand depart for a long cruise on his boat, the I Do. When they return, Roark finds that his plans have been altered. Although Keating has tried to protect the integrity of Roark’s design, he has found it impossible against the bureaucratic power wielded by Toohey. Gus Webb and Gordon L. Prescott, two proteges of Toohey, have connections among the government officials in charge of the project, and get themselves appointed as associate designers. The changes in Roark’s design begin with one of the social workers assigned to the Cortlandt development. She demands an added wing for a gymnasium, although there are two schools and a Y.M.C.A. within walking distance. Webb and Prescott both desire to express their individuality, and Toohey sees no reason to hold them back. Keating trudges from office to bureaucratic office, seeking to preserve Roark’s building, but finds no one willing to assume responsibility for “an issue of esthetics.” Roark, after seeing an announcement in the newspaper describing Webb and Prescott as associates, stands across the future road from the construction site and stares at what had once been his design. “He saw the economy of plan preserved, but the expense of incomprehensible features added . . . a new wing added, with a vaulted roof, bulging out of the wall like a tumor. . . .” The evening after Roark’s return, Keating comes uninvited to Roark’s apartment. Sincerely contrite regarding his inability to prevent the alterations to Roark’s building, Keating offers to openly confess the truth in public, but Roark declines. He does not tell Keating his plan, but points out that the consequences of his impending action will be worse for him than for Keating.
With Dominique’s assistance, Roark dynamites the building. Although he does not need her help, he judges that she is now rid of the belief that the good has no chance at success, and is consequently free to take an active role in aiding him. She pretends to run out of gas in front of Cortlandt, and sends the night watchman to get gas at the nearest service station, one mile away. With no lives endangered, Roark then blows up the building. He turns himself in and says he will speak at the trial.
There is public outrage against the destruction of a housing project. For the first time in his career, Wynand goes against public opinion. He defends Roark in The Banner. Wynand maintains that his newspaper controls public opinion, and that his readers will believe what he wants them to believe. He personally takes charge of the campaign to defend Roark, putting on display his own brilliant journalistic skills in the process. He writes a series of articles describing trials in which innocent men were unjustly convicted by the ignorant bias of society. The Banner recounts the history of those great thinkers persecuted by an uncomprehending public—Socrates, Galileo, Pasteur, and many others. Wynand runs an exposé of the public housing industry: “the graft, the incompetence, the structures erected at five times the cost a private builder would have needed.” He puts out the word to his twenty-two newspapers, his magazines, and his newsreels: Defend Roark, demonstrate his innocence, reshape public opinion. But because Roark blew up a housing project for the poor, opinion runs heavily against him. The backlash against his defenders is swift and strong. There is an outcry against Wynand, and circulation drops. The strongest elements of dissent come from Wynand’s own public—from the Women’s Clubs, the ministers, the mothers, the small shopkeepers. “Roark was almost forgotten in the storm of indignation against Gail Wynand.” For several years, the popularity of The Banner had been dropping, as Wynand, inspired by Dominique’s presence to display his real values, had killed many of the sentimental pieces adored by his public. Further, Toohey had subtly orchestrated a campaign against Wynand featured in the small but prestigious intellectual magazines. Now, stickers and posters proclaiming, “We Don’t Read Wynand,” appear on walls and subways across New York City. Many news vendors refuse to display The Banner; they carry it hidden under their counters, to be provided for customers only on request: “The ground had been prepared, the pillars eaten through long ago; the Cortlandt case provided the final impact.”
