Trump wants to 'Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again' with neoclassical order
Source: The Guardian
Trump wants to 'Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again' with neoclassical order
President reportedly wants to mandate return to classical architectural style, according to draft order
Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Tue 4 Feb 2020 23.03 GMT
Last modified on Tue 4 Feb 2020 23.11 GMT
Donald Trump wants to make federal buildings beautiful again by mandating a return to the classical architectural style, according to a draft executive order obtained by Architectural Record on Tuesday.
The Record reported that it had obtained what appears to be a preliminary draft of the order.
Under the order, it said, the White House would require a rewrite of the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, issued in 1962, to ensure that the classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style for new and upgraded federal buildings.
Confirming to the Guardian that the Record was reporting a genuine draft document, the Pulitzer prize-winning architectural critic Paul Goldberger said the problem with the order was not with classical architecture per se.
It was, he said, that the mandating of an official style is not fully compatible with 21st-century liberal democracy.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/04/trump-federal-buildings-beautiful-classical-order
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Readers have their choice of which totalitarian regime Trump is trying to emulate.
TheRealNorth
(9,462 posts)Last edited Wed Feb 5, 2020, 01:02 PM - Edit history (1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_architectureyellowcanine
(35,693 posts)CaptYossarian
(6,448 posts)Being a Chicago native, I love old architecture. We have to pay our bills first, though.
When was the last time he had an idea that didn't hurt people or the environment? I can't think of one.
BillyBobBrilliant
(805 posts)n/t
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,283 posts)From the article in Architectural Record:
February 4, 2020
Cathleen McGuigan
Editor's Note: The American Institute of Architects issued a statement in response to this story on the afternoon of February 4, 2020. Read it at the bottom of this page.
{snip}
Meanwhile, last week, the GSAs Chief Architect and Director of the Design Excellence Program, David Insinga, resigned his post.
{snip}
Yet Moynihans Guiding Principles also dictate that an official style must be avoided, and that new buildings should reflect their time. Design must flow from the architectural profession to the government and not vice versa, the guidelines state. The Government should be willing to pay some additional cost to avoid excessive uniformity in design of Federal buildings.
The mechanism for the radical upending of these principles, in order to promote classical and traditional regional architecture (Spanish colonial style, for example, would be permitted in places like Florida), would be a Presidents Committee for the Re-Beautification of Federal Architecture. Its members would include the Commissioner of the GSAs Public Building Service and at least one member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, designated by the President. That commission, which approves architecture and design in much of the nations capital, is composed of seven experts, appointed by the President to four-year terms.
President Trumps first appointment, in November 2018, was Justin Shubow, the president of the National Civic Art Society, which is devoted to furthering classical architecture. Its website contends that contemporary architecture is by and large a failure, and states the organizations mission is to help architecture return to its pre-Modernist roots. Much of the language in the draft document echoes the website for Shubows organization.
Shubow became well known for his dogged opposition to the proposed Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, designed by Frank Gehry (which is finally opening this May). President Trumps two most recent appointees to the Fine Arts Commission, made this past December, are James C. McCrery II, AIA, a founder and board member of the National Civic Art Society, and the Indiana-based architect Duncan G. Stroik, AIA, whose work is informed by the timelessness of classical architecture and the humanism of traditional cities, according to the Commissions website. The terms of the four other members of the Commission expire next December.
As a real estate developer, Trumps taste in architecture tended to the glass and steel of modernism, albeit in an often glitzy stylefrom the 1983 Trump Tower in New York, designed by the late Der Scutt of Poor, Swanke, Hayden & Connell, to the 2009 Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, designed by Adrian Smith, then at SOM. When Trump bought the Gulf and Western building on Columbus Circle in New York in the 1990s, he hired Philip Johnson and Costas Kondylis to re-skin its facade in bronze-tinted glass, prompting the late critic Herbert Muschamp to declare it was an International Style skyscraper decked out in a gold lamé party dress.
Will an executive order to bring classical design language to new federal architecture even be issued? The White House certainly has more pressing matters on its plate. But if it happens, quietly or otherwise, the impact would be enormous.
{snip}
SLOT FILLED
David Insinga Named Chief Architect for GSA
Insinga will succeed Leslie Shepherd who has held the position since 2007.
By KATHARINE KEANE
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced on Tuesday that David Insinga, AIA, has been selected to serve as chief architect for the Public Buildings Service effective Dec. 11, 2016. In the press release the GSA stated, "As chief architect, David will provide visionary leadership at a national level and high-level technical policy direction for the agency in matters of design quality and innovation, design excellence, and cost effectiveness in federal design."
{snip}
raccoon
(31,105 posts)I immediately thought of Adolfs plans for gargantuan buildings.