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Make Architecture Great Again
The brutalist J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, DC, built in the 1960s.
The Trump administration may be crafting an executive order that would require all new federal buildings to be designed with a classical appearance. The Architectural Record claims to have obtained a copy of the order, ‘Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.’ According to the report, the order makes reference to the architectural taste of the Founding Fathers, who styled buildings from ‘democratic Athens’ and ‘republican Rome.’ The order critiques modern architecture under the General Service Administration’s ‘Design Excellence Program’ for failing to integrate ‘national values into federal buildings.’ It claims the quality of architecture produced in the modern era is ‘influenced by Brutalism and Deconstructivism.’
On cue, the architectural establishment threw a tantrum. The American Institute of Architects released a statement “strongly condemn[ing] the move to enforce a top-down directive on architectural style,” adding that “[a]ll architectural styles have value and all communities have the right to weigh in on the government buildings meant to serve them.” Fair enough. But the Chicago Sun-Times, which evidently sees itself as the guardian of all that is good and holy in design, has this to say:
[Trump] would demand that the buildings be designed in architectural styles of centuries past, extending his reactionary instincts to the very brick and mortar of government. . . . Trump’s order would hurl architecture back into a bygone era when women wore bonnets, men wore tricorn hats and the only acceptable design for a federal building was a knock-off of a classical Greek or Roman structure.
Heh. I’ll note only this: Perhaps it’s time to make knock-offs great again . . . like the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the White House, and all the Smithsonian buildings. Some knock-offs, those. Moving on:
A state-mandated architectural style that retreats so resolutely into the past is an implicit negation of the best of American and world culture over the last few hundred years. It is also the stuff of authoritarian regimes, which always distrust the new and unexpected. It doesn’t go unnoticed here that Mussolini, Franco and a particular failed German art student all pushed for a singular, classically inspired state architecture intended to project tradition, order and the superiority of the state.
Ah, yes. The go-to argument among modernist intellectuals. Prefer columns and cornices to amorphous blobs of steel and glass? Fascist! Not thrilled with the “new and unexpected” melting butter-cubes, cheese-graters, and squatting insectoids that pop up in modern cities? Hitler! Prone to artistic nostalgia? Die in a ditch, brownshirt scum! It’s true, of course, that bad men used good architecture for bad purposes. Why should that stop us from pursuing good architecture? Bad men also wore pants. I don’t suppose that we’re obliged to adopt the kilt or the toga, no?
In all seriousness, I’m not in full agreement with the proposal. I’m no fan of the executive order, and I’d rather the state not decree an “official style.” Still, why shouldn’t the federal government have some say over the design of its own buildings? In a bygone time, when women wore bonnets and men wore tricorn hats, there was no need for such heavy-handed guidance. All architects could be trusted to create something beautiful. Now, they can only be trusted to create . . . something. I, for one, would welcome a return to the old way of designing.
Until that time comes, I’m content to sip from my glass of cool, refreshing, and oh-so-delicious modernist tears.
Published in Culture
The Classical Orders do not go out of style. The ancient Greeks were brilliant in using pleasing proportions, and the Romans added engineering. The modern, bauhaus, concrete and glass curtain wall buildings are not appealing to me nor it seems many people in their own homes. I draft a lot of house plans, and the Craftsman/Arts and Crafts are still popular and the Farmhouse style is currently hot. It is nostalgic and a reprive from the high tech world. I have only designed (actually the owner was an artist that designed it, I drafted it for him) 1 mid century modern in my 30 years. One of the most popular books right now is called “Get Your House Right” by Marianne Cusato and is one of the best references for owners concerning design.
Generally the history of architectural design is defined by periods; Gothic, Victorian, Edwardian, Arts and Crafts, shingle, LeCorrsibur, etc.
The McMansion is a dying building type and there is a website that makes fun of these designs. They are basically a mess of shapes and rooflines and large unused rooms (proportion and site orientation problems). They are also, in our area, dogs on the real estate market.
This is just my observation from experience.
Here’s an exemplar of the current standards for federal buildings, the San Francisco Federal Building competed in 2007.
Ugh. Yeah, I for one would prefer more traditional architectural styles.
This is heartening.
Residential architecture has always been less modernist than commercial and public architecture. This isn’t to say, of course, that American residential architecture doesn’t have its problems (lord knows, it does), but the caution homeowners show in choosing how to build suggests that the anti-modernists have a point — that people, in general, really do prefer the traditional.
I’ve never really got modern art either. This is really ugly in any setting except maybe a dump.
I don’t think my house is particularly large, but I think it fits in the mcmansion book.
Omg. I am so fed up with the space and proportions. Is the site mcmansion hell? I think I’m going to enjoy looking at that.
This building is a nightmare for all sorts of reasons:
And:
Ten out of ten, Morphosis. (Hint: Never trust a firm called Morphosis. Gimmicky name = gimmicky architecture.)
The modernized visitors’ center at Mount Rushmore (itself the outgrowth of America’s own flirtations with fascism) is a prime example of brutalist and dehumanizing federal architecture. It has all the artistry and warmth of a Soviet office block. It is an atrocity in the otherwise quite stunning Black Hills.
I’m never gonna get tired of winning! Government buildings should look stately, not like something designed under the influence of LSD . . .
You ought to spin this into its own post, show off some of your work.
It’s not just the garish McMansions that are poorly designed – so are the more modest suburban homes too. Classical floor plans are hard to find, instead it’s all “open floor plan” everywhere, which just makes for a mess of noise and privacy violations.
Since the topic of authoritarian governments vs architects has been raised, it’s easy for me to come up with my obligatory Russian movie reference. It’s the opening cartoon segment of Eldar Ryazanov’s Irony of Fate. Mandated uniform architectural style is the premise of the film. If you have friends with Russian spouses (or have one yourself) you should at least have a passing familiarity with the film that most Russians have watched every New Year’s holiday since 1975.
I’ve watched it several times myself, but this New Year I didn’t watch it all the way through.
McMansion hell it is.
Link?
Wow, that opening is subversive! Love it.
Reminds me of Moscow has multiple utterly identical towers around the city – I think it was a design Stalin liked, so it was the main one that got built.
Democrats in Washington for years have hated on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, mainly because of who is was named after and their distaste for law enforcement in general. But they did get bipartisan support for hating on the look of the building, which is the most egregious example of mid-century Brutalism architecture among federal buildings in the district:
You would think Trump then would be on safe grounds using this an example of what not to do in the future — since the FBI headquarters is due to be replaced — and in support of a more timeless neo-classical style. But given the Dems’ current Pavlovian response to oppose anything Trump supports, odds are now they’ll want something even uglier to be the new James B Comey Jr. FBI Building, simply to teach Trump a lesson, and where any architecture that fits in with Washington’s historic government buildings will now have a MAGA taint attached to them, and must be opposed at all costs.
I can’t be the only one who immediately jumped to this:
If we want to rekindle the enlightenment, we should adopt their architecture, which they adapted from the Greeks and Romans. I’d like for churches to do the same too. There are some ugly churches in America.
Gosh. This is . . . well, I don’t know what it is, but I’m enjoying it.
Is that the Soviet Woody Allen I see? And the Soviet Diane Keaton?
Back when I was in the business, we had one inflexible rule of design: Form follows function.
I believe that most of the designers of modern monstrosities create them to model their “originality.” If they knew they themselves were going to work or live in their “creations,” they might take a different approach.
The recently departed Sir Roger Scruton talks about this a lot. Modern architecture looks to achieve only functionality.
Who’s to say that architecture’s only function is to provide shelter? Couldn’t aesthetic enjoyment also be considered a function of architecture?
I’d argue that many of the modernists misinterpreted Sullivan. In context, his maxim that “form follows function” isn’t so much a call for utilitarian simplicity as a statement of a rather Aristotelian idea — the notion that a building’s design ought to be fitted, in some way, to its purpose.
Progressive architects are unhappy with the proposal, since requiring a uniform style is what Fascist governments do, and this plays into the theme of “restoring and reclaiming Western Civilization” favored by white-nationalist Trump-supporters.
Wish I was kidding, but I’m not.
Andrei Myagkov? He has played some romantic loser (or unlikely winner) roles. I never thought of him as a Woody Allen, though.
If you watched far enough to see Barbara Brylska appear, you’ve gone further than I expected anyone to go in this film. I don’t think I’ve seen any of her other work. She is a native of Poland, and after the filming of this one was done it was decided that she didn’t have a good enough Russian accent, so her voice was dubbed. Pretty good dubbing job, I’d say. I don’t watch the Russian entertainment/variety shows like I used to, but she has been a regular in the judge’s bench, and looks like her plastic surgeon is a lot better than the one who does Nancy Pelosi.
Awww, man. Yeah thought this one would go over well. But seriously, what if they talk about the WPA? We could kill two birds: get the proposal passed and make some necessary revisions to FDR’s legacy.
Even church architecture has suffered. I’ve been in some churches that have all the warmth, and charm of an East German railway depot waiting room.
It looks like it should have wheels roaming a desert with little guys in cloaks stealing stuff that isn’t nailed down:
Dang it, somebody beat me to it.
Beauty does not matter: What’s important is to be “original”.
Transgressive. Doesn’t matter what you transgress, just be sure to trans all gresses you encounter and you’ll be an artist.
One would have to have the soul of a gauleiter or an industrial robot to like that building.