Anthony Cord, a young Wall Street tycoon, hires him to design his first office building, a towering skyscraper in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Also, Kent Lansing, a member of the board formed to build a luxury hotel on Central Park South, wants Roark to design the building. For various reasons, the board is skeptical. Most have never heard of Roark, some have personal connections to other architects, some are influenced by the opinions of family members or friends. Lansing fights indefatigably for Roark. When Roark asks him why he is fighting for him, Lansing replies, “Why are you a good architect? Because you have certain standards of what is good, and they’re your own, and you stand by them.” Similarly, Lansing continues, he too has standards regarding a good hotel, they’re his own, and Roark is the man who can give him what he wants. The other members of the board are against him, he tells Roark. But he has a huge advantage: They don’t know what they want. He does. After a month of Lansing’s battle, Roark signs a contract to build the Aquitania Hotel.
As the Enright House is built, Austen Heller seeks to take Roark to a social gathering of architects, critics, and potential clients. He wants Roark to make contacts; specifically, he wants Roark to meet Joel Sutton, an admirer of Enright who considers hiring Roark. Heller tells Roark that he does not want to hear anything more about granite quarries for a long time. When Heller mentions that Dominique Francon will be there, Roark agrees to go. At the party, Dominique is stunned to discover that her workingman lover is the designer of the Enright House. As Heller introduces them, Roark observes Dominique’s demeanor. “There was no expression on her face, not even an effort to avoid expression.” Roark thinks that it is strange to see a face presenting a bone structure and an arrangement of muscles but no meaning, a face as a simple anatomical feature, like a shoulder or an arm, no longer a mirror of thoughts or emotions. He and Dominique engage in polite conversation, formally correct, giving no one a clue to their real relationship. At the party, Joel Sutton expresses interest in hiring Roark for an office building, but he is disappointed that Roark does not play badminton, his hobby. Sutton likes Roark—he likes everybody—but he is easily influenced by others.
Dominique writes about the Enright House in her column. She says that the building is “essentially insolent,” and a “mockery to all the structures of the city and the men who built them.” Few readers understand that she attacks Roark’s building because it is too brilliant for the mediocrity of its surrounding. Most readers miss the extravagant praise she pours on the Enright House—as she intends. They recognize only that she attacks the building. Joel Sutton, who respects her opinion, is disturbed by her criticism of the Enright House. She invites him to lunch, where she convinces him to hire Peter Keating, not Roark. After taking the commission away from Roark, she comes to his apartment that evening; they make love. Dominique gives herself to him “in a surrender more violent than her struggle had been.” This sets a pattern for their relationship: Dominique works by day to take commissions away from Roark—and at night she makes love to him.
Dominique joins forces with Ellsworth Toohey in an anti-Roark alliance. For differing reasons, they are determined to wreck Roark’s career. They agree that both will work, each in their own way, to take commissions from Roark and bring them to Keating. To this end, Dominique uses her grace, beauty, and connections to throw dinner parties to which she invites prospective clients, and at which she charms them into hiring Keating. Under the guise of attacking Roark’s buildings, she continues to praise them in print, until Toohey convinces her to stop advertising Roark’s name in her column. Enright, who respects her, is angered by her comments regarding the Enright House. He takes her to the construction site, and is not surprised by her ecstatic reaction to the building. But he is puzzled to later read in her column such remarks as, “I wish that in some future air raid a bomb would blast this house out of existence. . . . So much better than to see it growing old and soot-stained, degraded by . . . the dirty socks and grapefruit rinds of its inhabitants. There is not a person in New York City who should be allowed to live in this building.” Enright is not certain if she attacks the building because she doesn’t like it or because she thinks it is so good that society does not deserve it. Roark understands her methods, as does Toohey. Dominique stops mentioning Roark and his buildings in her column.
Despite some successes, Toohey realizes that the anti-Roark campaign is failing. The Enright House, the Cord Building, and the Aquitania Hotel combine to give Roark a degree of publicity. Toohey is worried by Roark’s growing recognition. He convinces a follower, Hopton Stoddard, to hire Roark to build a temple. Toohey knows that Roark’s building will feature a magnificent but revolutionary design, one so original that he can then accuse Roark of attacking all of the accepted precepts of religion. Toohey is right regarding Roark’s design—it is an architectural masterpiece. Further, Roark hires the brilliant young sculptor, Steven Mallory, to design the Temple’s sculpture. Mallory, like Roark, has a vision of man the noble hero, capable of greatness. Mallory’s figures reflect this respect for man. Because of the startling originality of his work, Mallory, though young, has already faced rejection in favor of more conventional sculptors. He is cynical and outraged at the injustices of society. He takes a shot at Ellsworth Toohey, because he believes that Toohey knows everything about the deeper causes of these injustices and supports them. When Roark meets him, he is drifting toward dissolution. He doesn’t keep his appointment with Roark, he makes no contact to explain his absence, he is drunk when Roark meets him for the first time, and he is rude when Roark comes to his apartment. But Roark recognizes Mallory as both a great talent and a spiritual comrade. Roark hires Mallory, he encourages him, and Roark’s example inspires the boy. Mallory’s sculpture for the Stoddard Temple is worthy of the Temple itself. Another reason for its beauty is the fact that Dominique agrees to pose for the Temple’s central sculpture. The three of them—architect, sculptor, model—are joined by Mike Donnigan, Roark’s construction worker friend, in a bond similar to that felt by individuals on a crusade. They understand that the building of the Temple to the Human Spirit is a sacred undertaking.
