Italy shuts down Steve Bannon's "gladiator school for cultural warriors"

2019-06-03T19:39:00-04:00

Italy’s cultural heritage ministry announced on Friday (May 31) that it would revoke a lease granted to Bannon after reports of fraud in the competitive tender process. The former Breitbart chief and aide to US president Donald Trump was reportedly paying €100,000 ($110,000) per year to rent the 13th Century Carthusian monastery, but now will have to search for another spot.

What was once the potential site for a training academy for the far-right, the Italian state evicts the conservative Catholic organization Dignitatis Humanae Institute (DHI) due to reports of fraud. According to a recent report from The Economist, institute director Benjamin Harnwell was shocked by the news, while the former aide to US President Trump stated the letter was "totally legitimate" and "dust kicked up by the left."

The plans for transforming a medieval monastery near Rome into the center for these "cultural warriors" of the far-right included the prospect that students "would learn philosophy, theology, history, and economics, and receive political training from the former Trump aide himself."

Unhappy with the recent news of losing the monastery, DHI plans to fight the decision in court. “The DHI will contest this illegitimate maneuver with every resource at its disposal no matter how many years it takes. And we will win and in the meantime, we relish the opportunity to ...

British transport minister decries "cult of ugliness" in brutalism, modernism

2016-11-02T19:09:00-04:00

A Government minister has declared war on “brutalist” architecture, arguing that it is “aesthetically worthless” and embodies a “cult of ugliness”. John Hayes, a transport minister, said in a speech that the Government would be the “vanguard of a renaissance” in architecture by rebuilding a Doric arch that stood outside London’s Euston station before it was demolished in 1962.

"Politicians speak a lot and sometimes they speak sense," the British Minister for Transport John Hayes states at the beginning of a speech that makes a case for a return to "beauty" in public architecture. Specifically, he takes aim at brutalist transit stations and promises to rebuild the Euston Arch, an 1837 Doric arch. "What a statement it will be of the revolt against the Cult of Ugliness, of our new orthodoxy," Mr. Hayes contends.

I highly recommend reading the speech. It's pretty out there (and a bit chilling to tell you the truth):

"My certain conviction is unwavering. We will beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly to new elegance, style and beauty."

Sure, you may very well agree with his sentiments, but can you really defend a public transport minister invoking the most cliché line in the Great Gatsby to make his point? Also, it should be noted that, when first erected, the Euston Arch was called by critics "gigantic and absurd", among other things.

More reports ...

Archinect - News

Italy shuts down Steve Bannon's "gladiator school for cultural warriors"

British transport minister decries "cult of ugliness" in brutalism, modernism