In Gaudy We Trust: Trump Issues Exec Order Mandating Classical Architecture On Fed Buildings
By: David Taintor (TPM)
The President has one month left.
The nation is in the grip of an unprecedented medical disaster.
The President uses his time to decide architectural rules for government buildings.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
US President-elect Donald Trump waves toward the media after meeting Martin Luther King III at Trump Tower in New York City on January 16, 2017.
Dominick Reuter / AFP
He's a builder, after all.
Trump announced the executive order Monday morning. The order's text bemoans a lack of "beautiful" federal buildings — and seeks to change it.
"With a limited number of exceptions, such as the Tuscaloosa Federal Building and Courthouse and the Corpus Christi Federal Courthouse, the Federal Government has largely stopped building beautiful buildings," the order reads. "In Washington, D.C., Federal architecture has become a discordant mixture of classical and modernist designs."
"It is time to update the policies guiding Federal architecture to address these problems and ensure that architects designing Federal buildings serve their clients, the American people. New Federal building designs should, like America's beloved landmark buildings, uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public, and, as appropriate, respect the architectural heritage of a region," the order's text continues.
Never mind that many of Trump's eponymous skyscrapers are modern-looking steel and glass structures, complete with lots of gaudy gold decor.
A number of commentators on Twitter noted that authoritarian leaders love the sort of neoclassical buildings Trump is boosting in the order.
Comically proto-fascist, yes, but the truly funny thing is that this little essay begins "Societies have long recognized the importance of beautiful public architecture." Check-plus, off to recess. https://t.co/P7chtbuwze
— Nathan Heller (@nathanheller) December 21, 2020
Others pointed out how Trump surely has better things to do with his limited time left in government.
David Taintor is a New York-based senior editor who oversees breaking news coverage.
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Back in the bad old days, when there were absolute kings, sometimes one went mad. It's not hard to imagine the royal courts at such times, with everyone tiptoeing around, hoping not to draw His Majesty's attention. And the king... blithely producing edicts, that had nothing to do with what was actually happening in the kingdom.
But that was back in the bad old days. Unimaginable today...
318,000+ dead from covid and this is trumps focus? Then trump supporters cannot figure out why trump lost. SMFH
This immediately came to mind
An architectural model for Hitler's "1000 Year Reich" Berlin
Cool link.
What an asshole.