The billionaire real estate developer whose support for President Trump sparked calls for a consumer boycott is also behind one of the flashiest redevelopment projects coming to downtown Los Angeles. — The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times points out that Stephen M. Ross, the controversial real estate developer and investor behind Related Companies, luxury gyms Equinox and SoulCycle, and other business interests, is also a driving force behind The Grand, a Frank Gehry-designed mega-project slated for Downtown Los Angeles.
Ross's business interests have recently taken a hit as news of the developer's plans to host a $250,000-a-seat fundraiser for President Donald Trump came to light just days after a white suprematist gunman evoked the president's own words before killing 22 people in El Paso, Texas. Nearly all of the victims in the shooting were either Mexican Americans or Mexican nationals, according to The Los Angeles Times, and the tragedy is widely seen as a direct and racially motivated attack on those communities, as a result.
Ross's political activities—and the consumer-focused business investments that fuel those activities—have come under fire as other elements of society, particularly in the art world, work to expose and root out the prevalence of so-called "dirty money" in their everyday affairs. Except in the instance of Ross, the situation is somewhat inverted, with protesters speaking out against what Ross does with the profits his businesses generate, rather than targeting the practices of businesses themselves, as has been the case in other industries. The increasing toxicity of President Donald Trump, however, is blurring that distinction somewhat. As recent chants of “SoulCyclers support kids in cages!" portend, the line between the policies a politician enacts, the business owners who support those politicians, and the businesses and customers themselves is a relatively straight one.
As a result, Ross's Related has not escaped outcry. The developer, for example, is one of several developers behind Hudson Yards, a controversial project in its own right that has received further scrutiny as Ross's political activities have come to light. America's volatile political climate has the potential to create uncomfortable situations for architects, as clients like Related, which maintains over $50 billion in real estate assets around the world, deal in high-profile works of architecture that create lucrative commissions for some of the world's top architecture firms and designers, in addition to supporting a variety of business and political interests. Will the architects and architecture firms that work for people who maintain questionable business practices—or support controversial politicians—come under scrutiny themselves?
Recent examples from the art world show that no brand is too big or too prestigious to avoid accountability.
In July, for example, eight artists, including London-based Forensic Architecture, pulled out of the Whitney Museum of Art's 2019 Whitney Biennial, capping off nearly a year-long protest against former Whitney Museum vice chairman Warren Kanders. Kanders, who resigned from his Whitney Museum post as the protests reached a critical mass, has business interests tied to violence on the Israeli-Palestinian border in Gaza. The move came just weeks after Yana Peel, the head of the London-based Serpentine Galleries, resigned amid a similar ethics scandal due to her alleged ties to the development of cyberweapons used by autocratic regimes.
These seismic ethical shifts in the art world indicate that with enough public pressure and outcry, even venerable institutions like the Whitney Museum can become politically and culturally toxic; Will there be a similar reckoning in architecture?
For a variety of reasons, it's hard to tell. Of course, the architectural profession exists at the complicated intersection of power, finance, and human rights, three areas that are seeing renewed scrutiny today. As the business dealings and philanthropic endeavors of the world's wealthiest people and companies come under scrutiny, will architects engage in similar acts of protest and refusal? Or will a business-as-usual climate remain?
30 Comments
Trump's rhetoric is not unlike a mid-90's Bill Clinton. Why there is such an outcry regarding Trump, and the continued misunderstanding of his rhetoric by turning them into absolutes, is beyond me.
But if you want to boycott (shouldn't it be person-cott?) then go ahead. Just remember all the people employed to build this stuff and then run the buildings are not all card-carrying members of the Fourth Reich led by my glorious leader Herrn Drumpf!
I think your claim of not understanding the outcry is a bit of chum looking for sharks, no?
i understand the general public has been whipped into a frenzy with false claims that the u.s. is 'literally running concentration camps' but what i don't understand is people's lack of understanding of history.
Ignoring for the moment that a lot of people did call out Clinton's immigration and crime policies as draconian even for that time... you accidentally hit on a point here - which is that Trump's thinking has not evolved since the early 90's despite the fact that the reality of immigration (the demographics crossing the border are wildly different from the 90's and the reason for their crossing are wildly different from the 90's) and popular opinion have changed *significantly* in the past 30 years.
We have a president whose worldview is stuck in the 1980's trying to apply 1980's ideas to 2010's problems and it's not fucking working.
bitch, please. give me a 'worldview', and i'll give you when that 'worldview' has already happened. actually the open borders / amnesty 'worldview' is from the same time period (and even before) and that didn't fucking work now did it?
I think it worked alright. Not a total success, but the movement was largely hampered by legislative pushback. What about it failed, in your opinion?
"give me a 'worldview', and i'll give you when that 'worldview' has already happened."
I think you're missing the point, which is not that the 1980's is in the past, but that the solutions from the 1980s sought to solve a problem that looks nothing like the problems of the 2010s. "Immigration" is not a fixed thing. You can't solve the problem of political refugees from El Salvador by applying the policies developed for economic migrants from Mexico. And that's before you get into the debate over whether those initial policies were the right moves.
Obama deported more people, but he did it correctly, by ramping up deportations of people convicted of serious crimes rather than wasting time and resources on a large majority of people who are just here working and trying to make a better life.
He prioritized resources which is more efficient if you really care about border security. Trump is spreading resources thin for political spectacle.
That’s the difference.
On this we agree.
.
Breaking news, same day Antonio highlights the Foster + Partners designed Haramain High Speed Rail bought and owned by the Saudi Arabian government, no negative words. And Frank Gehry designed here? You mean the same Frank Gehry known for his work with Facebook?
I can point anywhere and find a controversial client, many clients with larger negative impacts than what you were able to list here. But I don't think you're going to call those clients out. Guess you don't actually want to question the intersection of power and human rights.
It's easiest to hit if you aim for the most visible targets.
How dare anyone get mad about something they're aware of while not getting mad about something they aren't aware of. The absolute hypocrisy.
We hold America to a higher standard.
Fundraising for Trump or holding an event with Ivanka means that ICE won’t raid your facilities. guess what, we are living in authoritarian times, and 2020 is probably our last chance.
What this has to do with architecture is a long a complex issue where sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes bad politics can produce good design and vice versa but usually not. But overlaying political narratives on top of design (as opposed to easy targets in the art world) is the realm of grifter journalists
the federal government enforcing the law? the nerve of them!
AUTHORITARIAN TIMES INDEED!
Bad news for you. The left is also authoritarian.
Slavery was the law. Segregation was the law. Appealing to "the law" without bothering to explain why the law is good is a very dumb moral stance.
"Authoritarian" has become meaningless. Both major parties have their power overreaches, but only one reaches in service of white supremacy.
I love how the American people are given 2 bad choices and then demonized for picking one.
"The lesser of two evils" is not an excuse for choosing the greater of two evils.
Who you consider the greater of 2 evils has little to do with inner defects, and lots to do with sensitivity to certain brands of stimuli. Our democracy isn’t about who we like, that’s hard to sell when the cream doesn’t rise to the top, it’s more about who/what we dislike.
All the Dems have to do to win is stfu and not annoy anyone. They are doing a bad job of that so far.
The greater of two evils is openly supporting white supremacist terrorism.
That’s a bullshit talking point being used by politicians. He may be a dick, maybe even a racist, but he never supported terrorism. Part of the problem is the hysteria and hyperbole.
Do you also think that only people who proudly don KKK hoods are racist and everybody else gets the benefit of the doubt?
I really don't have time for another epistemiological fight so I'm just gonna ditch this one.
Developers (and anyone else who wants anything done) contribute to both parties (otherwise known as the duopoly).
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