Make (Federal) Architecture Great Again
On Wednesday, February 4th, the Trump Administration, in association with the National Civic Art Society, proposed an executive order calling for a revised architectural style for all federal buildings. The order states that all new government buildings (over $50 million) will return to Washington D.C.’s typical neoclassical style.
Many top architectural voices have pushed back against the order, declaring it “anti-progressive.” One of these voices is the highly-influential American Institute of Architects, or AIA, which gave this statement on Twitter:
Jamie L. Whitten Building, D.C. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Historically, Washington D.C. has been home to many of our nation’s most celebrated works of high architecture. For instance, the Jamie L. Whitten Building (1908, left) is a Beaux-Arts staple of D.C. architecture. Like the Capitol Building and the White House, the style inherently implies a kind of stately authority.
J. Edgar Hoover Building Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The tone of national architecture shifted in the middle of the last century, however, as Modernist sentiment became widespread. When Modern architecture gained a stronghold by the 1950s, the national landscape began to see an outgrowth in colder, more severe buildings. In D.C., the movement manifested itself with buildings like the infamous J. Edgar Hoover Building (1965, shown left), the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building (1965), the Hubert H. Humphrey Building (1972), and the iconic Washington Metro System (1976), to name a few. Many of these buildings opened to much public outcry, even to this day. More recently, the National Mall has witnessed the inclusion of another visually-controversial landmark, the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
By 1962, President Kennedy adopted the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which stated that federal architecture should “embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought.” (One might be led to wonder whether the AIA opposed this set of legislation when it was proposed. Most likely not. Its author, New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been heavily praised and awarded by the AIA; in fact, the AIA has championed post- and modernist superstars and their buildings throughout the decades. In my estimation, it is in the AIA’s culturally-progressive interest to oppose the Trump Administration.)
Old Pennsylvania Station, NYC Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The public, for decades, has abhorred modern architecture; The historic preservation movement in NYC was born out of the demolition of the original Penn Station (shown right). The 1910 structure was a vast, grand, neoclassical gateway to the greatest city in the world at the time, New York. The city mourned when it succumbed to the wrecking ball in 1963, only to be replaced with the dark, underground catacomb of the current station. To give another example, the public never commissioned or approved, and has never stopped objecting to the inappropriate, brutalist monstrosity of Boston City Hall (1968). It was also an outgrowth of the modernist movement. The AIA praised it at the time of its construction, while citizens reviled it. Reuters reports it was voted “world’s ugliest building” by a travel site in 2008.
A characteristic of modern and postmodernism is the notion that most, if not all, societal norms and traditions should be examined and challenged. The goal of modern and postmodern philosophy found its ideological endpoint at the conclusion that all the traditional notions of beauty and civility were deemed wanting and regressive, and that it was necessary they should be discarded.
The notion extended into architecture and implored us to abandon the pretenses and decorations of the past while moving into a more “enlightened” style worthy of the progress of the 20th century. The sentiment can be traced to architectural pioneer Le Corbusier and his magnum opus Towards a New Architecture (1923). The torch of modernism was carried on through the century by names like Louis Kahn and I.M. Pei in their contributions such as the National Assembly Building (Bangladesh) and the National Gallery of Art, East (D.C.), respectively.
In critics’ defense, architectural mandates have historically been a way for tyrants to impose a set of ideals onto a populace from above. In both totalitarian regimes, the Third Reich and Mussolini’s Fascist Party, for example, Fascist Architecture was employed to foster national political precepts of socialism, rationalism, and corporatism. These ideals complimented the stripped-down cues of International Style and Modernism. Both Hitler and Stalin’s Nikita Khrushchev touted Corbusier’s refrain, denouncing “stupid imitations of the past” and “condemning ‘excesses’ of the past decades.”
In post-revolution Cuba, Castro led a campaign to give Havana “the most beautiful academy of arts in the world.” Castro favored modernist and Soviet architecture, and the project was supposed to reflect the ideals of his socialist-Marxist utopia. It was never completed. Until 2011 in the communist nation, all architecture had to be approved by the state.
It is not, however, the responsibility of any state to dictate style, especially ours. Far be it from a conservative viewpoint that the government should dictate the practice of private designers. Should the United States mirror a policy that Castro and Che imposed on their subjects? Governments, whether fascist, socialist, or republican, will necessarily broadcast a message to visitors and the world through its municipal buildings regardless of the intent. The question is, what should that message be?
Military Engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant (under direction from both Washington and Jefferson) designed our National Mall in 1791 around a certain set of principles. One of those was to elevate a city plan to reflect the free, hopeful, and federal nature of the United States. The National Park Service describes L’Enfant’s vision for D.C.: “as the capital of a new nation, its position and appearance had to surpass the social, economic and cultural balance of a mere city: it was intended as the model for American city planning and a symbol of governmental power to be seen by other nations.”
L’Enfant-McMillan plan for D.C. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
L’Enfant recognized the will of the people coming to bear in his design when he poised the house of Congress on a high perch at the end of a long, grand axis, Capitol Hill (shown, left). As the manifest will of the people, the home representatives elected by the people deserved the highest seat of honor. L’Enfant purposefully set the White House off-axis from Congress’ seat of power. The less-celebrated position implies a minor honor, reminding us of the president’s subservient, instead of royal, authority.
Washington himself selected designs for both the White House and the Capitol Building in neoclassical styles. He praised the design for the Capitol, in part, for its grandeur. The Lincoln Memorial was designed in a Greek Revival style (an iteration of neoclassicism). The Jefferson Memorial is classical as well. The style, or derivations of it, clearly exemplifies a vision for America. Even AIA’s 2006/2007 list of America’s Favorite Architecture is replete with grand, neoclassical buildings by vast majority. Americans know what they want.
American public buildings should exist in a bifurcated state. On the one hand, they should celebrate that the United States exists on the world stage as the first and most liberalized society in history. On the other hand, the United States was built on a constitution of principles, values, and the rule of law. The buildings where the business of governance is carried out should reflect these two appearances.
One could certainly argue both for and against neoclassicism being the expression of our founding principles. However, I must argue that it is; the style conveys both enlightenment (where our founding principles of truth and freedom—as well as neoclassicism itself—were birthed), and authority (a necessity of governing a free people).
Portland Building Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Our federal buildings, in being reflective of our values, should concurrently reflect the desire of the people, in a republican (read, democratized) nation. In this way, modernist buildings are antithetical to the voting public’s wishes. Unfortunately, we cannot vote for good architecture. (If we could, surely Michael Graves would never have been employed; see Portland municipal building, right.) It would seem as though the Trump Administration is responding to decades of public outcry and implementing a by-proxy vote that buildings along our National Mall should reflect the nature and ideals of our country’s founding.
In this way, Trump is doing what he was elected to do by de-facto reversing decades of postmodern ideology. The Administration has shown once again that it is giving a voice to the marginalized perspectives of the everyday citizen, who has long been aware of the contempt that intellectuals have had for them in their ugly subversion of language, arts, and architecture.