Thread by @ErikBootsma, Critics of the Executive Order on classical architecture for Federal Buildings are [...]

Critics of the Executive Order on classical architecture for Federal Buildings are peddling following:

1:The US has no official style of architecture
2:The US has never had an official style of architecture
3:That classicism is somehow fascist.

Every one of these is false
1/

The General Services Administration currently operates under a set of architectural standards from 1962 that state:

"Major emphasis should be placed on the choice of designs that embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought"

AKA Modernism/Deconstructivism
2/

While the standard does say:
"The development of an official style must be avoided. "

It lets the establishment architects set the tone:

"Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government. and not vice versa.”"

This lets the fox into the henhouse
3/

So it may be "de jure" not official, the effect is a defacto dominance of architecture by the architectural profession which is entirely out of step with the CLIENTS of Federal architecture, ie the citizens.

4/

When Washington DC was founded, Thomas Jefferson, who was the architect of the Capitol of Virginia sought to establish Roman Classicism as the style for government buildings.
This was to emphasize both the Republican form of government as well as the ideal of virtue.

5/

The classical continued in the plan of Washington DC with the L'Enfant Plan and Ellicott Plan, which laid out rational axes and emphasized the centrality of the people through classical motifs.

6/

Over the course of a century the L'Enfant Plan was abandoned and forgotten and the National Mall became a disorganized mess with rambling gardens and even a train station in the midst of it all.
7/

Seeing this Sen. McMillan organized a commission of Charles McKim, Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmstead to study and propose a redesign of the Mall.

They created a plan which re-emphasized the classical plan of Washington DC of Jefferson and L'Enfant.

8/

This plan was ENTIRELY classical and guided the design of
Natural History Museum
Department of Agriculture Building
Union Station
the Supreme Court
House and Senate Buildings
National Gallery of Art
Lincoln Memorial
Jefferson Memorial
Federal Triangle
9/

This mandate was protected for half a century by the Commission of Fine Arts, who were entrusted with the implementation of the designs of Burnham et al.

The CFA lost its way and forgot about creating a unified ensemble of buildings & reverted to the mishmash we see now.
10/

Worse still the government was taken over by the 1962 standard and gave away the keys to the kingdom, unleashing a barrage of inhumane and ugly Brutalist architecture on the Capital.

Classical design was entirely rejected and replaced by Modernism
11/

As for the idea that somehow classicism is somehow coterminous with fascism, it's an incredibly ironic statement.

This lie was first peddled by Philip Johnson, who having failed to sell Mies to his native Germany during the Third Reich, sold it to America instead.
12/

Johnson of course is now correctly being scrutinized for not only trying to sell German Bauhaus architecture, but trying to sell German politics in America.

All conveniently forgotten now of course
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-nazi-architect-marc-wortman
13/

Famed Architect Philip Johnson’s Hidden Nazi Past

Philip Johnson was a pedigreed, witty charmer from Cleveland who became a fixture of Manhattan’s art world and social circuit. But before Johnson’s rise to fame as one of America’s most influential...

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-nazi-architect-marc-wortman

Corbusier, who has been lauded for a century almost as THE architect of the 20th Century was a collaborator with the Vichy regime, and tried to use the power of the state to level half of Paris.
14/

If Classicism were so essentially Fascist, then why did FDR use it for the Federal Triangle, which was filled with progressive imagery, antithetical to Fascism?

15/

The point is NO architecture is inherently connected with any political regime.

True architecture expresses universal principles, which totalitarian regimes twist into serving their own purposes.
This applies to Brutalism as well (though it seems particularly suited for it)
16/

But those true universal principles, which align with the universal principles upon which our country was founded, are better expressed by classical architecture than in any Modernist style.

They simply cannot express honor, virtue, pride and our people in any way.
17/

Brutalism is entirely alien to our natures, and as such is entirely rejected by those who haven't been indoctrinated in design schools to accept this dreck as normal.

There may be something wildly exciting about it, but it descends from the same emotions as a horror film.
18/

We are right to reject it, and right to demand that the architecture which symbolizes our nation, whomever is in the White House, should be one that represents the highest ideals of the PEOPLE, and not of some architectural elite, passing judgement from above.
19/

Reject these critics and their terrible logic and demands to simply "shut up and take what's good for you"

Embrace our common heritage and bring America together again. In our common civic spaces we can find this again, and alienation of Modernism.

Choose your fate America
FIN

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