how do you sleep at night, knowing that with your project you are supporting a regime/giving them a platform to keep on suppressing innocent people/celebrate their achievements/etc... do you want to be the next Albert Speer?

pray tell, what is the difference between building for Hitler, Stalin, Bush, Trump, Exxon, Union Carbide, Dow, Enron, et al...?

totalitarian regimes don't hold together through the efforts of one person only. there are people within any regime that believe in what's being said and done. presumably, in many cases, architects are among them.

i'm not sure there are many circumstances in which an architect has been on the outside of a regime and been able to have enough comprehension of the unique situation in order to say: 'shall i work for a totalitarian regime? hm.'

mussolini's architects were from within his circle, stalin too, and speer was certainly within hitler's.

yes, beta, there are certainly differences between these guys and trump, exxon, etc - even if we only talk about context and the expectations of a business environment in which architects work for corporations. we can't call bush a 'totalitarian regime': we know the end date of his reign.

(if you're going to argue all these are one-and-the-same, there'll be no arguing with you, so i won't.)

one example situation in which an architect HAS been able to be fully aware of the situation is oma at cctv. a huge reason for all of the debate about the appropriateness of rem taking on that project is that we all know that HE KNOWS what it means as much as anyone. that makes his choice much more interesting - and able to be parsed indefinitely.

you know what steven, i will finish reading the book and come back and try to make an argument - or not.

Didn't Ivan the Terrible have the architects of St. Basil's Cathedral blinded because they created something of such great beauty?

At least that's how I heard the story.

I think I'll take my chances of hearing "you're fired" from trump over being blinded.

From what I know, a french architect has had the three listed issues when faced with a big opera house commission for a sort of totalitarian regime in a not so far east country, formerly known as the big enemy.
I'd suggest avoiding that kind of client at all cost, but everyone's got to make a living right?

You forgot:

d: conscience is a motherf*cker

But what if I get 20 wives as part of the bargain?

-i'm not sure there are many circumstances in which an architect has been on the outside of a regime and been able to have enough comprehension of the unique situation in order to say: 'shall i work for a totalitarian regime? hm.'-

I think all "western" architects are in that situation all the time. all it takes is thinking. and feeling.

that would be if you believed that everyone thought and felt the same as you do. As painful as it may be, some people don't.

Surely in working for the regime there is room for subversion, for many of the layers in the palimpsest to attest to freedom and humanity while the layer presented to the regime/tyrant/dictator is merely a shell, a vessel within which to make statements of betterness and "truth".

There were many musicians working in totalitarian states (citation needed) who sold their mother country the swerveball. Surely the same is available to the Architect. Some smooth talking and the emperor's new clothes...

Also, to effect change in many of these places one actually has to be there, to get involved, to breathe freedom into the society.

d. you might actually loose your head

An interesting thing: D. Libeskind said in an interview that he would newer work for a totalitarian regime - mostly because he was born in some circumstances etc. And he does not consider a right thing to build in a non democratic country where there are issues concerning human rights and so forth.

I think -as far as i know- he is probably the only one starchitect who does not build in china or some other totalitarian (or semi totalitarian) country.

I am not so much a fan of his architecture (too much Jewish museums that are to much alike etc.) but this thing is/can be a correct attitude.

But his case takes us back to what alex_ian said: there is no big chance that an exterior person to the real situation one regime creates to understand it completely. Libeskind has a childhood in eastern europe, the holocaust and so fort.

but this does not mean that one cannot and should not take a stand (a political one maybe) considering the violation of human right, free speech, unnecessary poverty, lack of education, corruption.

does he build in the states after 2000 ?