"While the original architect of Donald Trump's ever-expanding ballroom steps down and preservationists panic over the fate of New Deal murals inside the Social Security Administration building, the president gushes about painting the granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building white, fixing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and erecting his own Arc de Triomphe. To peruse the plans for a Trump-era capital district alongside the General Services Administration's list of assets identified for accelerated disposition the federal buildings slated for off-loading is to discern a diagram of Trump's values."
"Like all fascists' aesthetics, Trump's gaze is backward to an idealized classical age and forward to a time when he, the Great Man, is immortalized in stone and gold. Everything that does not fit this vision must be renovated, razed or sold to the highest bidder. In March, the General Services Administration published a list of 443 properties it wanted to dump."
Donald Trump favors a monumental, classical aesthetic and proposes altering and monumentalizing federal buildings, including repainting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, repairing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and erecting an Arc de Triomphe. The General Services Administration circulated a list of hundreds of federal properties identified for accelerated disposition, briefly listing 443 then reducing and removing it before reposting a smaller batch. Many properties are mundane garages, warehouses, and minor courthouses, but some are architecturally significant and part of the national heritage. Preservationists fear loss of New Deal murals and modernist landmarks such as the Robert C. Weaver HUD building. Federal holdings belong to the public, not to private aesthetic agendas.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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