Donald Trump, Architecture Critic

"News of Donald Trump 's recent executive order concerning architecture, and particularly about preserving and protecting hallowed traditional styles, will have come as a surprise to anyone who recalls that one of his first appearances in the architectural realm occurred while tearing down an Art Deco treasure, the old Bonwit Teller building, and replacing it with a shiny glass tower meant for the residence of the very rich in a midtown New York non-neighborhood"

"The executive order states that "Applicable Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces," and that "Architecture-particularly traditional and classical architecture-that meets the criteria set forth in this subsection is the preferred architecture for applicable Federal public buildings. In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.""

"The weird mix of bureaucratese ("set forth in this subsection") and authoritarian diktat is part of the new normal, perhaps, as is the nature of the codicil stating the necessity of "notification to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy when a building design deviates from the preferred style, including where a design embraces Brutalist, Deconstructivist, or other modernist architecture.""

An executive order designates traditional and classical architecture as the preferred style for applicable federal public buildings and makes classical architecture the default for federal buildings in the District of Columbia unless exceptional factors justify another approach. The order demands notification to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy when designs deviate, explicitly naming Brutalist, Deconstructivist, and other modernist approaches. The language combines bureaucratic terminology and directive enforcement, and it contrasts with earlier private-sector demolitions of Art Deco landmarks replaced by glass towers, reflecting a prescriptive, centralized approach to public aesthetics.

Read at The New Yorker