President Trump involved in revamping the FBI headquarters in DC

2018-08-02T17:37:00-04:00

Trump is obsessed with the FBI building. For months now, in meetings with White House officials and Senate appropriators intended to discuss big-picture spending priorities, the president rants about the graceless J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C.

President Trump has reportedly taken an interest in the FBI headquarters J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown DC, overseeing every detail of the project. While he recognizes the value of the property, the president is not a fan of brutalism. Trump complained, "Even the building is terrible... It's one of the brutalist-type buildings, you know, brutalist architecture. Honestly, I think it's one of the ugliest buildings in the city."

Brutalism lovers rejoice: Plans for a new FBI headquarters are canceled

2017-07-11T14:40:00-04:00

The decision follows years of failed attempts by federal officials to persuade Congress to fully back a plan for a campus in the Washington suburbs paid for by trading away the Hoover Building to a real estate developer and putting up nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to cover the remaining cost. For years, FBI officials have raised alarms that the decrepit conditions at Hoover constitute serious security concerns.

Built in 1975 in Washington DC, at $126 million, J. Edgar Hoover Building was the most expensive federal building ever erected. While much loved by some architectural critics, the building has also been under intense criticism for its appearance and functionality ever since its construction.

J. Edgar Hoover Building from the street - taken in April 2007.

Some of its most distinctive features like its open courtyard, designed to allow visitors to walk freely into the inner courtyard, and its firing range equipped with a 162-seat auditorium, where visitors can sit and watch agents take shooting practice, have become obsolete over the years. The Stanislaw Gladych and Carter Manny-designed Brutalist icon was going to be demolished and replaced with a mixed-use condo building, but as of now, it's destiny is unclear.

According to the Washington Post, "Further retrofitting is prohibitively expensive; despite the Hoover building’s overall size of 2.4 million gross square feet only 53 perce...

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President Trump involved in revamping the FBI headquarters in DC

Brutalism lovers rejoice: Plans for a new FBI headquarters are canceled