When president-elect Donald Trump nominated Ben Carson to lead the department of Housing and Urban Development, the response was resoundingly: huh?
The neurosurgeon came onto the national political scene in 2015, during his run for the Republican nomination, but after Trump took the presidency and started throwing around the idea of offering a Cabinet position to Carson, a spokesperson said "Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." Despite all that, Carson is now (almost definitely officially) secretary of HUD (which he knows just enough about to seriously backtrack the agency's work as pushed by Obama). So here we are.
Special guest Marc Miller joins us on the podcast to discuss the implications of Carson's inexperience for HUD, as well as chew on the latest Schumacher-induced controversy: when the architect promoted the privatization of public space and trashed social housing at a recent talk in Berlin, ZHA responded to his remarks in an open letter, distancing the firm from its principal's so-called 'urban policy manifesto'.
Miller has degrees in landscape architecture, architecture and fine arts, and has practiced as an architect, urban designer, campus planner, and architectural lighting designer. He currently teaches in the landscape architecture department at Pennsylvania State University, and previously at Cornell.
Listen to episode 90 of Archinect Sessions, "HUD-winked":
Shownotes:
co-sign https://t.co/JyACNVhDON
— Christopher Hawthorne (@ByCHawthorne) November 18, 2016
What Marc is reading: “Rise of Cheap Nature” by Jason Moore; "The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter" by Jane Bennet; "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Term 'Anthropocene'" by Timothy Morton.
What Marc is listening to: the podcasts For Colored Nerds and Night White Sky, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and "A Rainbow in Curved Air" by Terry Riley
22 Comments
I keep hearing talk of Trump having picked Carson for HUD and Palin for VA or Interior. However, according to the latest reporting by NYT, while both of those names have been floated neither has been officially announced for any Cabinet position.
We hear you Nam (hence the "almost definitely officially" note in our write-up). We discuss the lack of clarity on the podcast.
Marc, I listened to this show today;
https://soundcloud.com/forcolorednerds/dear-white-people
Great episode.
I haven't listened yet. I've been watching the Schumacher thread blow up tangentially.
Excellent post, Rick.
I'm checking out the For Colored Nerds podcast today.
I posted elsewhere, but...
If any good could come from a Carson HUD, it may be that he could become buddies with former CDC Director Jackson and begin to learn from him about how the urban environment impacts public health. You know, a doctor to doctor sort of thing.
I think you would have been better off speaking with someone that actually works in the affordable housing industry and works with HUD and the state agencies involved in affordable housing on a daily basis. Its a great idea to discuss this issue, but if your not speaking with someone directly involved then your missing how the relevant points actually play out.
One wonders if there is anyone insufficiently qualified or morally so inept as not to receive an appointment from the Minority President. He has a way of searching out the worse and the worser, usually persons at odds with their departments' missions, with science, or with public service as a calling. Even the mere possibility of a neurosurgeon being given HUD leadership is bizarre.
We are living in "interesting times," as goes the Chinese back-handed blessing -- actually, a curse I strong advise a reading of this article, "A Yale history professor's powerful, 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency," http://qz.com/846940/a-yale-history-professors-20-point-guide-to-defending-democracy-under-a-trump-presidency/. The author, Timothy Snyder, minces no words.
We are in for a load of hurt, architects and designers just like the rest of America.
26.2 agreed.
Please note that in an earlier conversation I expressed a desire to have Ben Carson on the podcast. In addition, I stated that hearing the position of an incoming Secretary standard operating practice.
If this incoming administration's inward focus versus globally is the start of a trend in the United States it is important that designers understand their relationship to the political agencies in the process of reformulating urban territories, rural landscapes, and the infrastructure that stitches these fabrics together.
It seems to me that because of this shift the agency of design is increased and we will need to be prepared appropriately.
26.2 while I agree with you, I think it'd be difficult to find someone currently connected to the industry, willing to come on a podcast, and put their business at a severe disadvantage for future work.
Shaun Donovan, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the podcast.
That having been said, I was thinking less about the intricacies, and more about how someone with zero government experience could possibly run a bureaucracy as important as HUD.
To be honest, we don't know the direction of HUD, or who will ultimately run the agency, so it's hard to what degree this will impact the profession.
Here is an argument for why it might be a good idea to have a health professional* lead HUD: Housing is a public health issue.
*though maybe not a brain surgeon
Think less about building things and more about building communities that can serve their own needs and network with others. Reliance on the federal government is futile. For good ideas and practical initiatives, I recommend reading Shareable and Planetizen.
Robert,
While I agree that those two sites offer as wealth of resources, I contend that it is still important to pay attention to federal positions and initiatives. Recall that it was a series of practical federal initiatives that set the ground for territorial banking. Recall that it was a federal initiatives that gave minorities greater access to wealth through property ownership in the form of the Fair Housing Act. Recall that this was a Civil Rights Act and in response to redlining in the early 20th century.
Now if we look initiatives w/o reliance on federal initiatives consider contemporary forms of redlining that include retail (food) deserts and mortgage discrimination, and the problematic dynamics surrounding displacement. So I'd suggest that there are already efforts to ignore or circumvent federal initiatives.
Is this fake news??? I think archinect should have a policy to combat fake news. Then again if ruth bader ginsberg can climb K2... Why can't Ben Carson be HUD Secretary?
Sorry.. I didn't listen to the podcast.
One of the points that has be brought up is that you can be a professional that is sensitive to an issue, and be good at leading it (provided you know what don't know and you get highly qualified people to fill those gaps)- without the need for spending a night in a prominent hotel chain.
Furthermore, as Steven Ward suggested in this thread (and another), and as supported by Donna's link to Brentin Mock's article in City Lab - this could have been a productive cross-fertilization of professions. This is only reinforced by the relatively recent development of health and the built environment being a "thing" that gets people money.
What we need is a ENT, with an undergraduate degree in design. Sadly, the only one I know of is far from being old enough to take up this task.
Well, we now have our answer; it's Dr. Ben Carson.
Since I was aware of Julian Castro as HUD leader before, but have no tools to see if he was an effective leader or not, it's hard to judge any appointment. And "experience" is a very subjective criteria depending on what side you are on... lack of experience has become a commodity for good or bad (especially in architecture journalism). Obama campaigned on being fresh and non cynical... as did Trump. Nobody really hires from experience anymore.
Maybe that's the key problem he could address (or not). Figure out what is working, and what isn't.
Either way, I'm looking forward to Cuba Gooding Jr reprising his role as Dr Ben Carson in Gifted Hands 2: I Messed Up All The Cities While Napping
As for Schumacher, it sucks that this (extremist rants) is the only way to break through to the conversation, though even that is limited to a few. I blame the media (Trumpian, yes) like the NYTimes which has abandoned architecture, as well as our downward spiral of popular culture and education that engulfs us all. Schumacher might have become a hyper capitalist symphathiser because the super rich are the only ones that care for / can afford good design. The mistake of critics has been to tie good design to wealth, which is an insidious and awful conclusion that is destroying architecture. Schumacher view seems limited and unimportant, but is amplified by this crazy ass social media that is bringing dictators to every part of the world, but it's not going to help him escape Zahas shadow because nobody cares about architecture in e first place.
To say that Schumacher is unimportant doesn't jive with the work ZHA has done or is working on. To say that capital matters to make good design and to follow it up by suggesting that critics are at fault for saying only capital produces good design is inconsistent.
And to say that PS is a minor player is simply not true. Anybody who is capable of generating international press around because the office disavows what they are saying cannot be a small player. He may be part of a small group but he carries a great deal of weight among those with capital.
PS is creating press, but only in a self promotional way that echoes the critics dismissal of high architecture as irrelevant to the needs of society. Perhaps there is a nuanced way to suggest that capitalism and socialism have to balance each other, that good design trickles down to popular taste (ha!) or up from popular needs to high designers, but you won't find that view in polarized figures like Schumacher or NYTimes' Kimmelman who cash in by representing left vs. right narratives rather than architecture. PS is irrelevant in that is trying to rebrand Zaha's unique aesthetic in terms of his parametric nonsense, but he is and always will be a project manager for Zaha. Just start your own firm already... sounds like the firm doesn't want him there anymore.
I bet other big name firms are huddling around wondering how they can generate their own controversies. 100 bucks says some big name (Bjakre, Rem, etc) is trying to work with Trump as we speak.
PS is doing more that just creating press for practice. That's too much of a short term run.
He's been trying to position himself in architectural history in a manner similar to Giorgio Vasari for some time now. His goal is not to be merely a architect, but to be a curator of architectural cultural by structuring milieu with the instruments that he is familiar with.
What projects with large amounts of capital provide him with is the ability to prove -
1- Yes indeed, this is (was) high culture and the way things should be done.
2- That he has always had his finger on the pulse of high culture and the way things should be done.
3- That he is capable designing for this high culture and should be revered as such, saying look at all the all the projects that he has brought to fruition.
(didn't get my edit posted in time)
We all know that if you are loud or persuasive enough you can sway discourse in the direction you want it to go. In this case it's about how you can in one breath say architecture is about cultural curation but not social conditions- both of which are political.
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