The Architecture Lobby (TAL) has published a letter arguing against a proposed executive order from President Donald Trump that would mandate classical architectural stylings for America's federal buildings.
The group became the latest major architecture and built environment-related advocacy group to voice fierce opposition to the "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" initiative following in the footsteps of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) , the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), and Docomomo US, and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
As news of the potential executive order spread throughout the profession, the AIA also issued a pointed letter directly to President Trump arguing against the measure.
In their statement, TAL characterizes the proposed stylistic mandate as yet another sign of the current administration's penchant for mixing creeping authoritarianism with racial politics. The group writes that "Seizing on architectural styles is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes," while adding that "Neoclassicism in the US is directly related to the construction of whiteness. It was whiteness that was sought after in the many plantation houses that chose the style, justifying it as an emulation of ancient Greek 'culture' to separate themselves from the Indigenous peoples whose land was stolen and the enslaved African people forced to build and work in them."
The group adds, "Thomas Jefferson’s excitement with the work of the Beaux Arts school in Paris was motivated by a desire to make America 'European,' and white. In Europe, well-known totalitarian regimes — Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union — infamously dictated the use of the classical style. This is not coincidental."
The statement goes further than those of other organizations, however, and extends the logic of the executive order to the practices and policies that shape our built environment, often to the exclusion or harm of minorities and people of color. TAL writes: "planning codes and homeowners associations to favor eurocentric aesthetics under the guise of human-centric design, but whose true purpose is to continue the legacy of red-lining by preventing the densification and diversification of neighborhoods."
The group adds finally, "The 'Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again' executive order is a reformulation of these local aesthetic strictures at a national level and a blatant attempt to leverage aesthetics in the service of white supremacy."
If reading this caused you to feel the need to defend your own views on Architecture, spend some time looking inwards instead of spewing outwards.
no expert believes that architecture is not political. you sound like a climate change denier. Listen if you want to make architecture look like a slave plantation go ahead, do that, just don't pretend there isnt possibly some meaning attached to that choice. That's like trying to separate slums from poverty, bill cosby with date rape druggery, and cocaine from rich white people in the 80's. Can't be done.
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Sorry, but I think this is divisive, toxic nonsense.
Pointing out an injustice often angers those who benefit from perpetuating injustice. If that's divisive, count me in.
Classical architecture is neither creating an injustice, nor is it perpetuating one.
I've explained elsewhere that the problem is not any one architectural style but the *policy* dictating a single architectural style.
To again quote myself from earlier discussions: You can tell a lot about what people care about by paying attention less to what they say they care about and more to which events inspire them to start speaking.
Which is to say: Why did this policy come out now? Surely Trump didn't think of it (because he thinks of nothing), so someone (or someones) must have put it in his ear. Who? When? Why? Is it a coincidence that this administration has has multiple implied and explicit ties to white supremacists, the online support for traditional architecture in America has similar implied and explicit ties to white supremacists, and this policy just so happens to align with their interests? Maybe... but there are some pretty easily-connected dots here.
I'm sorry, but I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
A lot of the pushback against the outrage over this policy seems to be suggesting that people think that somehow the architecture itself is racist. It's not. It's not even that classical architecture is bad because white supremacists like it. The correlation there is backwards. The recent online groundswell of support for traditional architecture is a dogwhistle for ethnonationalist types, and that this policy is similarly a dogwhistle of support for those types. Pointing this out seems to anger the folks for whom the dogwhistle whistles. ...If that's "divisive", then so be it.
If I misinterpreted what exactly you think is "divisive, toxic nonsense" then please feel free to elaborate.
The Arch Lobby's letter isn't pointing at the history of architecture embodying the principles of racism & fascism, but rather the history of racist + fascist regimes co-opting an architectural style to promote and (literally) enshrine their ideology.
Thanks for elaborating. I'll be as clear as I can. I am strongly against the proposed federal mandate. I am against it not because I am against classical architecture, but because a top-down, dictatorial approach is wrong. I also believe that the attempts by opponents of classical design to tie it to racism and oppression are toxic and divisive. The statement by The Architecture Lobby is a particularly egregious example of this.
We mostly agree, though my reading of the racist ties is different than yours.
But where are the "...opponents of classical design"? As I said elsewhere, no one is saying Classical architecture is bad, but some people are saying *only* Classical architecture is good. THAT is divisive.
Isn’t that just what The Architecture Lobby is saying?
Oops, maybe I misread, did The Architecture Lobby call for banning an architectural style using the weight of the federal government to enforce it?
No they didn’t. But they did say classical architecture is bad because it exemplifies “whiteness”.
hmmm...
Thanks for this, Rick.
Quick question, Rick. Without googling, what color was the Parthenon when it was finished?
Surprise!
There are so many inaccuracies in this hate-filled diatribe it is difficult to know where to begin. The early colonial buildings, such as what is now Independance Hall in Philadelphia, were Georgian. Jefferson supported a return to the Greek style as they were the first to embrace democracy. So unless you consider Greek Revival to be more European than Georgian many of the comments make no sense.
Then there is the matter of "white racism" and connection to "neo-Nazis". A large part of the International Style is based on the preachments of Philip Johnson and Le Corbusier. Both were Nazi (real Nazi) supporters. Johnson waxed lyrical (in print under his own name) about the Germans bombing the Jewish people in Poland during the early part of World War II, and Le Corbusier was perfectly willing to flatten Paris for the Germans and rebuild it with his hideous block of modernist buildings stretching to the horizon in his ville radiuse plan.
Earlier than these two was Adolf Loos who famously said "Ornament is a crime). If he had said 'Art is a crime' everyone would have realized how disconnected from reality he was. He was also a convicted pedophile. A recent attempt by modernists to have his conviction by the German courts set aside posthumously failed, so he remains a molester of little girls.
"A recent attempt by modernists to have his conviction by the German courts set aside posthumously failed" He says without any evidence...
"In 1928 Loos was disgraced by a pedophilia scandal in Vienna. He had commissioned young girls, aged 8 to 10, from poor families to act as models in his studio. The indictment stated that Loos had exposed himself and forced his young models to participate in sexual acts. He was found partially guilty in a court decision of 1928.[11] In 2008 the original case record was rediscovered and confirmed the accusation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Loos
Q: Why show Jefferson when it wasn't classical, nor would he have claimed as being classical?
-Edit- misread. But there are still some inconsistent points.
Erik, that does not provide evidence that "A recent attempt by modernists to have his conviction by the German courts set aside posthumously failed"
Fair enough.
As previously said, Jefferson was a fan of French and Italian architecture and Ancient Greece texts which birthed the enlightenment. What is missing from this conversation is the fact that America had already outgrown its European roots by the end of the Civil War — which was not coincidentally when Free Soilers and Midwestern architects like Sullivan and FLW invented the Prairie Style, which was poised to become the American style until rich East coast elites sent their wives to train at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, ending the Prairie Style in 1920.
So, there is a gap of modernism in America from 1920-50, before the Bauhaus brings a more stripped down version of Prairie Style back to America — now falsely seen as “foreign” while the dainty classicism is now de facto American. Though many federal buildings from the 30s were neoclassical, you can see echoes of Art Deco (a more popular modern style) and modernism—which was more prevalent in NY and Chicago.
Prairie Style and Art Deco, and then Int Style and even Brutalism, Decon are all branches of American architecture. Real American history begins in 1865, the end of the Civil War (the end of the revolutionary period)
Nice little history there.
Who knows what glimmer of evil has caused our current president to stir up controversy among the design professions at this time. I suggest it might be the design and construction of the Obama library in Southside Chicago. Otherwise, who cares if another bank or town hall or memorial is built in a classical style. I'm not saying we have to like it or like working for another aesthetically bankrupt government body who will dictate another "colonial" facade. But does it REALLY matter?
I recently cracked open "The American Aesthetic" Nathaniel Alexander Owings 1959 tome accurately describing everything that has happened since in our built environment. It's an informative read. Not particularly flattering but giving perspective. Carry on!
Your argument that architecture doesn't really matter is out of place in the context of a forum for architects. I'm sure there are plenty of non-architects who do share your view.
So what's the verdict on this Boston building, Bulfinch's Statehouse:
Is it racist? What happens when we put the same building in Richmond?
This is a fantastic building that I would absolutely hate if it were built in 2010.
Better question: What happens if this building were built in Richmond way back when? It's not unthinkable this might have happened.
It would be a fantastic building that I would absolutely hate if it were built in 2010
All creations are a product of the time in which they were created - most of all buildings. A government policy that requires buildings built in the present to reflect the languages and values of the past is a painfully blunt metaphor for an empire fraught with anxiety over its decline.
In Richmond, back in in the 1800s, this building would still be a vessel for racist views and slavery legislation. But nicely put.
Put aside the racists like our dear leader and those who seek to divide and destroy..... but tduds comment here gets at the point. "I would absolutely hate it if it were built in 2010".
The question is why? If as Donna and others say Classical Architecture is not bad, why do so many think it would be bad today?
The same reason why air travel by dirigible, going to space in a cardboard box, or mail via horses is bad today.
So why has walking made a comeback from driving, or organic seasonal food displacing industrial GMO foods? Come on, you can do better than that, especially with such good taste in music.
I'm looking for the Entablature or Dentils command in Revit Tools. Input is welcome. Call me on my rotary phone or send a direct message via carrier pigeon or pony express.
Technology has changed. Methods have changed. Craft has changed. A new building done in the style of a 19th century neoclassical building simply would not be built the same way as it would have in the 19th century. The materials aren't the same. The workers have different expertise. Timelines, budgets, hell the program spaces themselves are not the same. So either you have a prohibitively expensive building for no reason or you end up with a cheap looking Disneyland set-piece.
To say nothing of the cultural values or artistic language.
Think of it like music. We have electronic and acoustic music instruments. When you listen to a song, does your enjoyment based mostly on the the instrument or the beauty of the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms? If the former, that's perfectly fine, but I would suggest you don't quite get music as deeply.
My enjoyment is based in both, as it is with architecture. Bach played through a MIDI controller is nowhere near as rich as Bach played on a harpsichord. 21st century recreations of 19th century architecture feel, to me, like Muzak versions of symphonies.
Thayer, I'm not sure what you mean? Are you suggesting walking, and eating right, have outlived their usefulness? Because that's my analogous reference; dirigibles and pony express no longer serve an evolving populace, just like classicism; it's dated, done, finito.
If we're going to look to the past for inspiration on the present we should be looking at indigenous vernacular, not imported Greek art.
The parallel to Neoclassical architecture is not walking. It's a chariot. Duh.
Walking is a critical regionalist mode.
b3, what I mean is, who cares what level of technology is delivering one's creation, if it's well done. I'm not saying you can't like synths over a piano, I'm saying that whey you hear a beautiful melody or a tight beat, your hearing the creators mind and soul. Progress is doing what's best, not what's new, and some, not all, of our technological advances have had detrimental side effects that older methods did not. Being modern isn't blindly following the next marketed gadget, it's having the choice to do so or not. If one want's to get into a drum circle rather than listen to their head phones, there should be room for both.
If reading this caused you to feel the need to defend your own views on Architecture, spend some time looking inwards instead of spewing outwards.
Thank you. I’m woke now
How many threads do the same 5 commenters need to spout the same 5 talking points that were already addressed ad nauseam in the prior thread?
until we resolve spatial justice, white supremacy, and those pesky gentrifying nazi stalinists, there can't be enough threads on this issue. this is NOT coincidental, people!
Well, don't you stop talking tduds. In fact speak up more.
Oh I will.
Funny how you complain about people going on and then promise to do the same. Answer this one simple question that no anti traditionalist has been able to, either yes or no. Are all architectural styles legitimate or are some not?
Answer it yourself first.
I've never claimed to be anti-traditionalist so why would I answer a question posed to me as such?
"Funny how you complain about people going on and then promise to do the same."
As long as the bullshit keeps flowing I'll keep being the wall holding it back. If the bullshit goes away I'd also go away, but if I went away, the bullshit would flood in.
For what its worth, all styles are 'legitimate' but most examples of any style are garbage.
Appropriation by the South especially of classicism for its own ends, and not just in architecture, is not a trivial matter. (I'm a former Southerner, decades ago.) Kostof again:
The Greek idiom was not intended to be the common denominator of the society as a whole, but the preserve of the ruling class. And that class made the idiom its own not because of its power to evoke liberty and democracy, but because it advertised the institution of slavery no more sullied the cultural Southern aristocrat than it did slave-owning Greeks and Romans.
Nor is this interpretation overly fine or subtle. It's a blunt fact that should be kept fresh in these debates. Yet many of the homes and buildings were still genuinely beautiful, an irony that somehow has to be managed.
I wouldn't be surprised that similar motives lie behind the buildings in Nashville and Tuscaloosa discussed in the other posts. But that's the beauty of the appropriation: you can't see the motives until the swastikas or confederate flags go up. And they may never appear.
But what is the solution? The logical extension of the TAL stand is that we stop building classical buildings altogether. (This won't upset me.)
What is the alternative that might satisfy such concerns? I have no opinion. I really want to see possibilities. In our divisive political climate, with the issue now made public, I don't think any such proposal stands a chance. If one does pass and get built, I'm already dreading it being defaced by swastikas and confederate flags.
For that matter, should restoration of older, classical buildings be stopped?
Is this not simply Kostof projecting his own beliefs into this? I'd be very interested indeed in any evidence that southern plantation owners and their architects were deliberately using Classical idiom "because it advertised the institution of slavery no more sullied the cultural Southern aristocrat than it did slave-owning Greeks and Romans."
Gary, your premise makes no sense. If the Old South's use of Classicism imbued it with its white supremacist values, wouldn't the North's use of it do the opposite? Are we to go around assigning a moral score card to all the times each style was used to promote a society's values, tally it up, and declare the most virtuous style winner? Couldn't we do the same for modernism with it's adoption by the communist totalitarian regimes or corporate capitalists putting profit ahead of our environment?
"The logical extension of the TAL stand is that we stop building classical buildings altogether. This won't upset me."
How in the world can you imagine traveling to any part of Europe like the classical cities of London, Rome, or Paris and do the same kind of exercise? And how do you explain the Black architects who practiced classical architecture before modernism banned historical styles in academia? Can't a human simply walk down a street and enjoy the sun light hitting a well composed facade without scrolling through the tragedies of human history that might at some point been associated with those forms? Imagine doing this with all other creative art forms. Please explain how this pans out.
Here is a detail of the sun hitting a classical building in Paris. Does this conjure up thoughts of oppression?
Depends on your thoughts about the sun.
Intent matters. One of the few positive outcomes of this inane directive is to observe how much architecture does matter to people, and how divisive opinions on the merit can be.
The intent of a racist and self-serving political body is much different than that of a series of Renaissance and Enlightenment Scholar-Architects and infinitely different from the original sources in Greece (but possibly a little like the appropriations practiced in Imperial Rome...)
Luckily history has a nice way of scrubbing architecture of meaning so that we can just appreciate the pure form. Like the sun-bleached whiteness of the polychromatic Greek monuments, we and everyone can intentionally misread history to suit political purposes.
There is no human history that can't be traced back to some terrible and shameful past; there is no alternative innocent past to prefer to the one we have. We should be very cautious of accepting willful misreadings of history just as much as willful misappropriations of it.
Ruins of Templo Mayor, Mexico City
Well said.
When was the Jefferson Memorial completed? It could have been built on the UVA lawn at the opposite end of the Rotunda, which was completed in 1826, and it would fit in perfectly.
This is akin to making English the official national language of the USA. Unnecessary, dumb, and a dog whistle issue.
Totally agree on the Executive Order. As for allowing classicism, let a thousand flowers bloom!
If you wanna design with a neoclassical bent, please do.
Thanks Pete, I can't tell you how good it is to get your approval!
By all means, get bent.
The order is written by people Trump approves of, at least for the moment. We need to look at what they are saying—and doing.
But it could be a campaign issue Trump picks up to play to his advantage. "See? Those leftist scum are trying to scrap our cherished traditions and beloved buildings. They've even thrown the framer of the Declaration of Independence under the bus." I can hear it now. And again, I want to see what the GSA people are saying. Schubow doesn't inspire confidence.
So the reason you don't pursue federal projects is because Trump is a jerk. Got it.
neoclassicism, the style for both kings and democratic institutions, is a blank slate to project any nonsense political view your have—racist or woke. In this case, woke nonsense. This one liner view of history — And yet its Jefferson who Abraham Lincoln quoted the most. Which isn’t to say neoclassicism should have had anything to do with American architecture post 1865, but you can blame that on rich eastern wives coming back from Beaux-Art schools in Paris in 1910-30, otherwise Prairie Style and Art Deco would be the only dominant styles across the US
blablablabla
Are you St. Woke? Convert me please. Help me see the racism in reclaimed wood furniture
Polish it up until it's as shiny as can be, then look closely.
ohhhhhhh SNAP!
Lincoln and Martin Luther King
Jeebus Keerist Sneaky Peat, that was a ZINGER!!!
I love Sneaky.
So “Classical architecture is racist” is the hill you are all going to die on? All the same folks who loved BIG in 2014 before he was cancelled
At a certain point the misunderstanding becomes willful.
BIG was cancelled? Maybe tell his (many wealthy) clients?
Wow you are woke
It’s telling that Sneaky gets praised for being snarky while failing to address the substance of the issue.
If you exhibit wokeness you don’t have to contribute substance (both here and in left elite circles)
Thayer, you say so many words and I have yet to experience substance in any of them.
Sorry, Thayer. That was uncalled for.
No worries Pete.
Erik, above—(I don't know how to format in the replies.)
I'm not going to go to the trouble of digging anything up, but the South has a long history of appealing to classical and other traditions if not to defend slavery directly then to mask a way of life intimately bound up with it and, later, with segregation, this done in its political oratory, literature and other arts, and architecture. I'm not going to do it, but I'd be curious to see the classical references and descriptions of architecture in Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansman, later turned into the movie The Birth of a Nation, a national hit, btw. This use has been extensive and pervasive, and I grew up with it. I don't know the racial situation in Tuscaloosa and Nashville, but I suspect it is not good and it's hard not to view their choices in courthouse and symphony hall with suspicion.
Sometimes history kills a style. It's impossible to imagine now someone with the purest of motives putting up a building—let's make it a convent—with a swastika floor plan. The plantation home is inextricably bound to the slave cabins, and some styles so strongly evoke the Gone-with-the-Wind mindset that they cannot escape the association, however well designed they might be.
In addition to racism, there's another downside to this superficial and suspicious clinging to tradition. It led to reinforcement of class structure, a narrow and unresponsive form of government, a precarious economic structure, and narrow and unsubstantial art. You won't find a single author in 19th century South worth reading. Poe doesn't count—and great Southern writers exploded in the 20th. Slave narratives, however, have enjoyed a revival, which are essential to understanding the culture and have literary merit in their own right.
But other plantation homes are simply beautiful and compete with anything built elsewhere at the time. It's an irony—great architecture can house the most spurious of motives or the best, my point about the Bulfinch. There is are so many outstanding civic and educational neoclassical buildings that served us very well, in ways that were democratic, not imperial and repressive. There are buildings in the South that do the same, or can with a change of motives. At the very least, let's not forget them. But it has to be good. That's what we have to remember, and remember why.
We're not going to chuck the classics, and the desire to respect and restore and relive traditions is essential. Southerners have a special problem. In a sense, all architecture in the South is tainted by association, given the history. But there is diverse and beautiful work throughout the area, and I have to confess after 30 years in stylistically challenged Silicon Valley I miss it.
We have to learn to live with our ironies and contradictions without giving ourselves cultural lobotomies, from the left or the right.
"There are so many outstanding buildings. . . ." Argh. Changed my mind mid-sentence.
Excellent post, Gary.
“Cultural lobotomies” is exactly what the left and right want. It’s too bad the swastika was ruined, it is such a beautiful symbol. It is theoretically possible even this symbol could be reappropriated into some new cause. May take another 200 years
You may have to wait 200 years just to say that. And thanks, Donna.
A solid response from Kunstler: https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/executive-order/
"proportioning systems universally found in nature, such as the Fibonacci series of ratios, which are seen in everything from the self-assembly of seashells to the growth of tree branches."
"links us to nature and to our own humanity."
"provide a way of expressing our place in nature, which is a pathway to expressing truth and beauty."
I fail to see why the only way to realize these opinions is through parroting the past.
It isn't. But established design languages such as the classic orders have evolved over time to embody that expression of natural order without having to reinvent everything every time (and most likely make a total hash of it). Richard Meier's work (mostly) abstracts those principles to a high level and manages to continue to express natural order inherent to the classical language without the direct referents. Some other modern architects have too.
But the vast majority of modern architecture is shit. It can't even fall back on a shared traditional design language to make it intelligible. It's just undifferentiated psychotic rambling writ large in phsycial form. The Morphosis SF courthouse is a perfect example of this.
The EO is basically saying: Since nobody can consistently make sense to anybody else by barfing out their idiosyncratic, incoherent ramblings, we prefer that they use a language we know and understand instead. It's not a tyrannical imposition. It's a response to t he failure of the architectural profession to make good buildings.
That's what it might be saying if it came from a coherent, stable, and consistent Executive Branch. When it comes from this administration, its motives must be questioned, challenged, and shredded if found to be anything other than the pollyannas would have us believe.
Well. Whatever your personal psychological and paranoia issues might be, they aren't my concern.
Low quality shade, g. Calling my suggestion - that Trump's administration is ethically challenged - 'paranoid' is funny.
I usually like Kunstler but I could barely get past the 2nd paragraph of this screed of misplaced motivations.
"Modernism doesn’t care about truth and beauty; it cares about power, especially the power to coerce. Many people detect that dynamic, and that is one reason they loathe Modernist buildings. The main imperative of Modernism was to separate us from nature, since it was human nature that brought about all the horrors of the 20th century and so revolted the intellectual elites. The result of that was a denatured architecture of the machine and an animus against what it means to be human located in nature."
Vomitous garbage.
I have to agree with Sneaky and Pete here. First Sneaky, everything from this administration must be questioned because it's a criminal enterprise. To b3, it's stupid to say what motivates a modernist as much as a classicist.
Now to the flip side...there's room for every form of expression to be given equal footing, especially in a modern democratic society. As Sneaky wrote..."I fail to see why the only way to realize these opinions is through parroting the past"
Why is something that looks traditional parroting the past and not something that looks modernist?
Neoclassical buildings have motifs and building elements that are decorative in the style of the past. Contemporary buildings that do not are, by some, considered modernist.
Modernists are usually parroting their own solipsistic circle-jerks rather than long-standing cultural design idioms. It's silly and self-indulgent to say that modern architecture is always sui generis and independent of past influences.
And Kunstler is absolutely right about modern architecture and its progressive underpinnings being all about power in the service of utopian fantasies.
Kunstler's critique can be leveled at both sides. On Pete's point: Not all neoclassical buildings have decorative elements of the past, and even if they did, don't you thing a building's design is about much more than what doo dads get hung on it? People get caught up on decoration when composition is a much better indicator of a building's aesthetic quality. Still, no one can adequately answer why neo modernism is more legitimate than neo classicism, or any other beyond one's taste.
that's demonstrably incorrect G. The edifice complex is more generally connected to classical or pseudo classical ideology (in the form of modernism too) than to modernist theory. There is an argument to be made about modernism as a continuation of power language if you want to find it, but also of its dissolution. The first modernists took both sides of the coin, both Berni and Trump in a single group if you need to frame things in today's terms. But the thing is, modernism has been dead and gone for more than 50 years. Archigram, Team X, Superstudio, the metabolists, even chris alexander, these folks all completed the step away from classical architecture that the founders couldn't escape. What we have now is something much different. No idea what it is, but the association with the past is quite firmly set aside, and good riddance to it. Mies was a genius, his work was also often plain hurtful and wrong (omg, so so wrong), and in lesser hands it went even wronger. This ambition to go back to a time when architecture stood more clearly for power and oppression is hard to read as anything but a claim to authority and a desire to control and manipulate. Kunstler is wrong about his history and wrong about what contemporary architecture is about too. We dont live in the 1950's anymore thanks fucking d og.
will, you seem not to know very much about the political history of modern architecture, which is very closely intertwined with revolutionary political utopianism, and has maintained that connection through numerous stylistic evolutions right up to morphosis advocating decon as spatial anarchy. And it's not dead by any means at all. Look around any modern city at the buildings going up under cranes right now. They are all in this mode, though in the present day revolutionary utopianism and global capital have merged into the final form of Gozer the Destructor.
Thayer-D I agree that composition has a lot more to do with spatial aesthetic quality than surface detailing, particularly in the use and resolution of archetypal elements in relation to one another. I think part of what people have been reacting to in all this, and where this EO is coming from, is that when the modern movements threw out all the implicit and evolved compositional rules embodied in the traditional and classic styles, they didn't replace them with anything of value. They just opened the gates to any kind of self-indulgent, cheap crap and tried to rationalize it as creative freedom.
I have a great deal of respect for abstract and "modern" architecture. It tends to be my personal aesthetic preference, and most of my own work as an architect has been in this mode. But I know and respect it enough to also know its roots and that it is extremely difficult to do it well. Much more so than working established design languages. But it's also easy to do badly, which is why there is so much of it and a large number of people hate it. As I said several comments above, this EO and similar moves by non-specialists are not ideological power grabs or creeping racism or anything so sinister. They are just responses to the nearly complete failure of our profession to do good work in any consistent way. As a fallback, they are now saying they will at least insist on something they know has some track record of generating marginally acceptable (if innocuous) results, even if they aren't spectacularly great. Contemplate that on the Tree of Woe.
Better something badly familiar than badly foreign? I can buy that line of thinking, assuming I'm understanding what you're saying.
Better something familiar with a demonstrated lower floor for badness, even if it may have a lower ceiling for goodness (debatable), than something with no obvious track record of consistent goodness or obvious floor for badness. They want to limit downside even if it also limits upside, because the unlimited downside which seems to come with the promise of greater upside has been generating mostly bad, not good. Does that makes sense?
"As a fallback, they are now saying they will at least insist on something they know has some track record of generating marginally acceptable (if innocuous) results"
...and it's a complete coincidence that the administration chose the very style frequently elevated by their ethno-nationalist supporters.
Now we're back to the paranoia, guilt-by-association, and hysterical political posturing. Your psychological issues are not my concern. There are plenty of examples of unpleasant people advocating for literally every type of architecture there is. If that's your standard for evaluating architecture, you'd better just climb into a dark closet and shut out the world.
Conjecture is now a psychological issue?
For the thousandth time it's not my standard for evaluating architecture it's my standard for evaluating the policy.
I googled divisive propaganda....it works. [edit: don't mean what these kids said, just mean the entire topic in general, its funny ;) ]
"... some styles so strongly evoke the Gone-with-the-Wind mindset that they cannot escape the association, however well designed they might be."
Just a few historically black colleges that feature neo-Classical buildings, Apparently they didn't get the memo.
North Carolina A&T, Dillard, Morehouse, Clark, Virginia State
Bitch, please. This is akin to some of my best friends are black people. You cannot expect me to believe ALL of the HBCUs were designed and built by black people - well maybe built, because, White House and DC - for black people? Not only that, but the few black architects there were, were likely trained in mostly white universities, and furthermore realized in order to present as a credible university would hew towards classical architecture so as to mimic whites only universities.
FUBU, REALLY!!!! Get that mess out of here.
I showed a classical building in DC built before WW2 by a black person. Do you really think those architects thought of classicism as racist or oppressive? BTW, you should really stop using the word Bitch. It's misogynous and kind of cut's against your fight for the oppressed, which I share .
I think black people, black architects, during Jim Crowe, knew the score, and you cannot refute that. And, the black architects that designed NMAAHC also knew, like architects of NMAI that the architecture of the 18th and 19th Century, is antithetical to future of this country, and all Americans. Stop.
What about the country and fiddle music of southern whites...is that antithetical to the future of this country? Should we stop enjoying it?
Stolen from slaves.
Stop what? You are free to not participate in this thread. The assumptions you make are staggering. Do you have any information that the students and faculty of these historically black colleges would prefer the quite ugly architecture of the Africian museum in DC to the gracious neo-Classical buildings on their own campus?
b3, you've jumped the rails. The music that Irish and English indentured servants brought with them was not stolen from slaves, it was blended with African traditions and turned into one of the most beautiful and fruitful American traditions that spread the globe. Our culture, like my blood, African, Native, and European, can't be separated into three different people.
Yet certain Americans seem to be trying really hard to separate in just that fashion, and this dog whistle of an EO plays into that fantasy to get racists to vote.
True that. Trump's the real sneaky devil. That's why we need to stand together whether, whether we're bent towards classicism, modernism, veganism etc . This is bigger than all our differences.
https://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article10078805.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2013/08/23/213852227/race-and-country-music-then-and-now
https://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_ii_banjo.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/15/how-bluegrass-became-americas-new-sound-of-political-protest
Please stop this pretense that one, Africa was a continent invented after the discovery of America, and two, that Colonialism is inherently rooted in American Colonies, the British and European Countries are just as responsible for theft as Americans are of slavery, racism and pretending that Africans haven't contributed to our collective.
Volunteer, the better question is what evidence do you have that you are correct, because I don't have to go back and do a deep dive, all I have to do is pay attention to the fucking news, and look at what happened in Charlottesville, for one example.
The words, you don't even consider the words. Blended? Like Jeff blended with Ms. Hemmings? Remarkable.
Oops, forgot Savannah State University.
there is a connecting thread here between “eurocentric aesthetics under the guise of human-centric design“ “this is not coincidental” and the recent controversy at Yale (cancelling or diversifying the Intro to Western History Art Class). That is the logic of connecting the content of the art/building with the morality or reputation (accurate or caricature) of its designer.
Until we end up with a definitive answer on that, we will keep going around and around in circles. Most experts agree that architecture transcends the political, while postmodernists or woke-religions project meaning on things.
Real architects and the smug PoWoke will talk past each other because they are addressing two different worlds: reality and reputation
You are lethal, I mean you're literally killing "woke", so much so that I'm getting sleepy.
no expert believes that architecture is not political. you sound like a climate change denier. Listen if you want to make architecture look like a slave plantation go ahead, do that, just don't pretend there isnt possibly some meaning attached to that choice. That's like trying to separate slums from poverty, bill cosby with date rape druggery, and cocaine from rich white people in the 80's. Can't be done.
So your an expert in human psychology, neurology, and how the human mind perceives their environment? There's a lot of science you should look into it before claiming to know what the experts know.
So the students, faculty, and board members of Savannah State, who built their neo-Classical building in 1909 and have enjoyed it for 111 years should not have been permitted to appropriate the symbols of democracy it implies? They were really emulating a slave plantation mentality and not democratic freedoms but were too stupid to realize it? If that is what you are saying then words fail.
Lotta words being attempted to fit into others' mouths there Volunteer, eh?
Architecture is used for political ends, but is not inherently political. Why is this so hard to understand?
Not really. A lot of historically black colleges have embraced neo-Classicism and the democratic ideals it implies. To imply those schools were emulating a 'slave plantation' is quite off the wall.
Many slave plantations have beautiful architecture that you could learn from. Doesn’t mean anybody wants to rebuild them or copy the style. The PoWoke are just as bad as Trumpers—they want to ban single family homes and cars.
What the fuck do you even mean by PoWoke? Is that something you invented and think is clever? Because it's impossible to understand. Poor Woke? Popular Woke? Poop Woke?
Post-Woke, me thinks. we were pre-woke, then we done got woke, so now we be post-woke.
Broke, Woke, Bespoke, Baroque!
PoMoWoke
Volunteer, that you spent more time typing that trash, and not considering history, or what was ripping through your myopic fingers is quite telling! Black Americans, in Jim Crow Era, considering the values of DEMOCRACY in their architecture, as if there was a choice, RICH! Tell me, were they doing that at separate water fountains, or at black only churches, schools, busses, train cars...Where were they thinking about that and not simultaneously laughing and crying? Or, maybe at Tulsa, as bombs from American planes rained down on their city?
All architecture may be political (or should we say any architecture can be put to political uses) but political ideology of any stripe is esthetically blind or stupid. The discussion has to be brought back to the discipline, to what makes a building successful, however you want to define success. Also politics change, morph, warp in all kinds of ways that often are ephemeral. Buildings, however, should last for years. Or centuries. Or millennia. What makes a stylistic choice endure?
The fact that Greek/Roman arch survives shows its resilience. Classical modernism may prove to be more so as it is still only 100 years old and everywhere on earth.
If you want to make architecture look like Soviet East Berlin, go ahead, do that, just don't pretend there isn't possibly some meaning attached to that choice.
Some people here, including the monitor, would see racism in a bowl of Wheaties.
The problem is you don't. And I quote; "Polish it enough, and look closely, you'll see what you're looking for."
b3ta's got a hammer he loves, and the whole world looks like a nail.
I love my hammer, the way a white man loves his privilege.
I should have provided an illustration for my post above, Little Rock protests against integration, 1959. My use is purely metaphorical. Anyone who grew up in the South those years or watched the news elsewhere saw similar pictures, Wallace at 'Bama, etc. Metaphorically, it fits into a pattern of appropriation of classical style to house racist views and practices, which was pervasive throughout the culture for years. And it's the picture that comes to mind when I read the executive order. It's a reflex.
The association is largely historical, to a great extent accidental. Nor does this building fit the plantation typos. It is similar to buildings in Washington and elsewhere, and I'd argue it is at least an adequate interpretation. I would say it is politically neutral (but stylistically it is neutered).
In fact I don't know what it is—anybody here? If it is a federal building, it should be noted that the federal government did intervene and bring in troops to force integration—reluctantly. (Eisenhower didn't want to touch this.) A national style has to be impartial, or try to be.
But here's a thought experiment: place this same protest before a modernist classic, modernist schlock, a Gehry, whatever. What happens? I'd be grateful to anybody with photoshop skills.
Next thought experiment: What would these protestors (who could care less about architecture but I suspect would defend the building behind them rabidly) or protestors today, left and right, say about each picture?
Rick’s right. Just because a bunch of knuckleheads says so don’t make it so.
Here's a great opinion from the Washington Post laying out how stupid this new Executive Order is. As the article says...
"The proposal evokes the central planning of dictators who use architectural identity to advance their grandiose political vision. That’s the last thing America needs."
This has nothing to do with where one lands on the political spectrum and everything to do with the fact that it's coming from an authoritarian, corrupt, and racist administration. I'd rather live in a modernist democratic society than a classicist dictatorship any day of the week. Fortunately, a democratic society is respectful of all opinions, or should be.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-starting-a-war-on-modern-architecture/2020/02/12/9ebb4c3c-49e7-11ea-b4d9-29cc419287eb_story.html
Though it is interesting over the past 10 years how urbanists have used the same logic in decrying, single family houses (grouping together McMansions with densely arranged bungalows), highways and such. The entire SB 50 controversy was a grandiose political vision of replacing single family homes with dense blocks. Which was a lot deeper substantively than Federal building styles. It's not surprising the right signals to the symbolism of anti-urbanism.
Here's a nice example of Italian Fascism from the 1930s (on the right, new building on the left). New addition in Arch Record. Like I said, if there is such thing as an "American style" it would be Prairie Style + Art Deco + Int. Style Modernism. It's too bad we don't get basic American Design History in public schools.
NOI Techpark
So your "American style" are: one from America influenced heavily by Europe and two from Europe? Kinda like our language, used to bludgeon people into conforming while also being used to tout our influences as originally created by us?
Pete, are you aware of European modernism's influence in this country? I suggest reading up on Philip Johnson, the Nazi lover.
European modernism was heavily influenced by FLW (who in turn was influenced by Sullivan and Japan). This is what I’m
talking about basic design history.
This is the architectural equivalent of arguing "Actually, the Republicans ended slavery"
I fail to see what Philip Johnson has to do with the immediate topic at hand. Other than bog standard whataboutism.
I also fail to see what anyone would benefit from a formalized and recognized "American Style."
Click to enlarge and read the signs. Why isn't the behavior of these people an expression of democracy? Before you leap to an answer of negation, recall reference to the ideal of self-governance in the executive order. Remember the demonstration in Charlottesville and the words about it from the president and others. Put the question to a vote among the populace. Go back in time and poll the people of Little Rock.
The decision to integrate was based on an ideal of equality, voiced by Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration, whose words were picked up again by Martin Luther King years later. The ideal was embodied in the Constitution and has undergone gender and racial revision. It was a constitutional decision that struck down segregation because it violated the principle of equality, Brown vs. the Board of Education, 1954. Three years later (I think the picture was taken in 1957) the federal government had to bring in troops to enforce that decision.
The road to equality, to democracy has been rough and still isn't finished. Brown overturned a previous court decision, Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896, that decided segregation did not violate the Constitution, based on the bogus concept of separate but equal. We struck down de jure, but for years, even now, we've had to contend with de facto segregation—everywhere.
My only point here is that we can't get good federal architecture without a meaningful and just definition of democracy. Also we have every reason to be suspicious of anything this administration does.
An even harder question is what style of architecture might represent our democracy and best embrace all people without alienating or offending.
"Thomas Jefferson’s excitement with the work of the Beaux Arts school in Paris was motivated by a desire to make America 'European,' and white.
This statement is divisive and toxic (Erik, at the top). Wait for Trump and Fox to get hold of it, if they haven't already, and tip more voters the other way.
Also the statement is myopic and ahistorical. It ignores the long, tortuous road from feudal systems to monarchies and the divine right of kings to the enlightenment that changed the way we saw people and their relationship to the state—and influenced Jefferson.
Besides, intellectually and stylistically, what were Jefferson's options at the time? He's not going to create a new architecture from scratch. When Jefferson went to France, Karl Marx (a white male!) hadn't been born yet.
Reading the comments of the Notre Dame architecture dean, and agreeing with them, I was curious about what kind of building the ND architecture students had. Bond Hall, a Beaux Arts building was built in 1917 of Indiana limestone and served as the library until 1964 when it became the home of the school of architecture. In 2019 the school moved into a new building. The older building seems to have much more grace, balanced proportion, and elegance than the new, at least to me.
I've enjoyed your slideshow, Volunteer, here and elsewhere. These discussions don't take meaning until reviewed with examples. Hard not to agree with you here. The first has energy and depth, literally and figuratively. The second feels flat and static, especially the red building. This is supposed to be a collection of buildings to suggest a village or plaza. But they just feel stuck together without the integration that can come from different but complementary parts. I may come back to this.
not to stir thing up again, but this comment by aaron betsky is quite on point.
Nah, keep stirring, Will. We get complacent too easily.
As with most of this administration’s bluster, the order masks a much more sinister dismantling of quality control and investment in shared infrastructure.
This is what we have to watch out for, and we have every reason to be suspicious. Does anyone believe he cares about the nation's health and will come up with a better plan? Likely it will be limited—no preexisting conditions, etc.—or a disaster. And let's review his forays in the department of justice.
Rope-a-dope is one of my least favorite political machinations.
The Notre Dame School of Architecture is a cluster of buildings that suggests a town or plaza, with campanile, temple, etc., and represents different styles. All forms move towards abstractions of the styles—are they representative of contemporary neoclassicism? Are they successful in reinterpreting the past and bringing it to the present?
The grouping lacks some kind of integration and the buildings fall flat and feel static. The Greek temple is just too small and is stuck there without any meaningful placement, relative to the rest. There is no hierarchy.
But someone disagree. (Erik? Volunteer?)
I am reminded of Sterling and Wilford's Center for Performing Arts at Cornell (this isn't a good, representative picture), which does something similar, a cluster of buildings suggesting an Italian town, again with campanile, etc.
I kind of like this and think it is a better use of traditional forms. Also it is lively and better integrated, not just because of the repetition of material. Many Post Modernists did study the past. Michael Graves made the tour of Europe and Turkey and drew sketches. I think any architect should make the tour of the past, if only to modify, react, or reject it. But what the Post Modernists realized is that they can't relive the past because it doesn't represent the present, that they can only refer to it with irony and displacement. We can't put on togas without winking. This displacement does raise questions of meaning and gives the buildings life. It raises an old discussion, keeps it alive, and gives us much to think about.
Jefferson did something similar with his Pavillions and residences at UVa that flank either side of the lawn. The residences are not too disimilar and their composition is anchored by the Rotunda. The result is absolutely stunning. Here there doesn't seem to be a principal building and the styles, which could be complimentary if they were farther apart, seem pushed together. Also it doesn't seem to be a place that would be frequented by anyone outside of the school of architecture.
Since HBCUs were broached above, I thought some might like a tour of A&T University architecture, mentioned. (I grew up in Greensboro, eons ago).
Most in Greensboro celebrate the fact that North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T) is the largest historically black university in the nation, and most recognize it is a well-regarded public land grant university for research in areas of engineering, biomedical engineering, and technology.
Fewer people realize that A&T’s campus is composed of a remarkable collection of buildings that trace the progress of American architecture from Neoclassical norms to wondrous Deconstructivism. A selection of architectural narratives provides some insights to the history of A&T.
Take the tour here:
https://preservationgreensboro...
I assume the above building is the student center. I debate the term "Deconstructivism" but let that pass.
Looks like 'Mid-Century Modern' to me and in a good way.
I debate the term itself—does anyone use that? I'm not sure what building they were referring to.
. . . but whose true purpose is to continue the legacy of red-lining by preventing the densification and diversification of neighborhoods.
From the TAL, above.
The Booker-Benton House is a rare surviving structure built by an African American family at the height of the Jim Crow Era, in the midst of the historically white College Hill neighborhood.
During the Jim Crow Era of racial segregation, black residents in the neighborhood began to decrease in numbers as renters and homeowners relocated to traditional African American neighborhoods such as East Greensboro. Their modest College Hill homes were sometimes destroyed to make way for larger white-owned homes. By the 1970s, less than ten structures with African American associations remained in College Hill. All but one of those structures were raised to make way for condos by the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission in the early 1980s. The Booker-Benton House is likely the sole survivor.
https://preservationgreensboro...
I got in a sentimental mood today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I lived in Greensboro for nine years....
Philip Freelon work at HBCU A&T State U:
I had no idea. A & T is one case study on how an institution accommodates the past and looks forward.
In March this year, 60 Americans unfurled a banner outside the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee that read “European Roots, American Greatness”. Their choice of building was deliberate. Identity Evropa, the group in question, are atypical of white supremacists. They adopt code names such as “Virgil” and distribute fliers depicting neoclassical sculptures, lending a cultured facade to their racist agenda.
https://www.newstatesman.com/c...
Another example of how classicism has been appropriated and esthetics and history corrupted. (And the TAL statement corrupts both as well.) Cf. my comments above.
I read it took senatorial intervention to get the classical courthouses in Alabama. (Who are the senators of Alabama?) Architecture has become a political battle, not an esthetic or cultural discussion.
woah there Rick please pump the brakes, man! study Martin Luther King for the way through this is non-violence. I think we all just need to chill out, PLEASE!
in this whole ridiculous discussion and outrage, has anyone mentioned this yet?
was this some sort of covert dog whistle, too? just checking.
WOW! You are clever! Using the tools of the Master's House, why didn't I think of it!
thank you, sir!
b3ta never fails to deliver examples of leftist doublethink on command. It's a Pavolovian response.
You kids could make a rock a political subject....
Take the pet rock idea to the next level. Make a democrat rock and republican rock, throw in the libertarian rock for special order and follow the pet rock in marketing and you'll be rich. The Green rock would not be a rock, it would be soil or hemp or tree!
Actually, call them "Political Yard Rocks" this way you can tell your neighbors whats up, subtly of course....
give me a few...samples coming.
- milk
.
"I see your Yard Rock with a Boulder!" - says one neighbor to the other
If we are going classical, I say we bring back women:
What better expression of strength, poise, and balance representing justice in a court building?
you know that Caryatids were an expression of domination over a conquered culture, right? We beat you, we took your resources, we placed our temples on your land, and we decorated the temples by depicting your women as our static captives, upon whose head and shoulders we rest the burden of your defeat.
In his famous manifesto on architecture, the Roman writer Vitruvius propagated an error about the Acropolis caryatids: they depict, he claimed, the humiliated and enslaved matrons of Caryae, punished by fellow Greeks because of its treacherous defection to the Persians. But it is unlikely that the Athenians would have devoted such a monumental and sensitively placed statement to that remote event. Furthermore, the entire power of the caryatids comes from our sense that the women’s subordination is not imposed but freely chosen. Spaced at a generous distance, they seem like confidently complete individuals who belong to a dedicated cohort. They are a sisterhood with one thing weighing on their minds-service to the gods. The air around them is transparent yet highly charged with religious feeling.
http://www.greeceancientmodern...
And Rykwert agrees. But regardless of source, their expression tells us all. These are not submissive slaves.
Caryatid, in fact, is Vitruvius's term, and his discussion is shaky, here as elsewhere.
what about dwarves?
Walt Disney Headquarters - Michael Graves
The funny thing about Women of Antiquity.
Greek Women
"Women in the ancient Greek world had few rights in comparison to male citizens. Unable to vote, own land, or inherit, a woman’s place was in the home and her purpose in life was the rearing of children. This, though, is a general description, and when considering the role of women in ancient Greece one should remember that information regarding specific city-states is often lacking, is almost always from male authors, and only in Athens can their status and role be described in any great detail. Neither are we sure of the practical and everyday application of the rules and laws that have survived from antiquity. We do know that Spartan women were treated somewhat differently than in other states. For example, they had to do physical training like men, were permitted to own land, and could drink wine."
some thoughts on vitruvian 'caryatids' in ch 2 of _vitruvian man: rome under construction_ (oup 2019)
Rykwert (The Dancing Column) and others are wholly convincing in their dismissal of Vitruvius's claim of enslavement of the women of Caryae. There is evidence the caryatid type came from the east.
Women have an active presence here in an important public and ceremonial place. They are not disrobed figures for erotic contemplation. And perhaps the best known building in all of history, across the way, houses the goddess who represents the highest qualities any civilization should have.
Again, the expression tells us all. The caryatids are an essential part of the building: they hold it up, yet do so willingly and gracefully. They all are different, are individuals, but ones who collectively join to support something larger than themselves. And again, what better expression for a democracy? Have them support the pediment of a federal courthouse. They won't scale well, however—15-20 feet tops?
This is an incredible architectural expression. They support a thick entablature which must have enormous weight, and do so with strength yet also relaxed ease. You won't find a rigid muscle or straight line in their bodies; their gowns flow and hang seemingly weightlessly. The design is varied yet also symmetrical and balanced. This is not a ponderous, oppressive construction.
Almost two and a half thousand years later the structure is still lively and fresh. This should be the Greek legacy, how to keep ideas and structures alive and relevant. I wonder what might be abstracted from the porch in contemporary architecture.
I love the Porch of the Maidens, and brought up the Vitruvian origin story as a provocation. Regardless of the true origin of this column type and the real motivations of the architect and sculptors, the fact is that the primary source on classical architecture specifically reads themes of domination through violent conflict and public shaming in this iconography.
"They are not disrobed figures for erotic contemplation." and yet: "The caryatids’ fleshy physique is distinctly revealed by their “wet look” robes (also worn by goddesses on a Parthenon pediment). These pensive girls with their broad, ripe, thrusting breasts seem eagerly poised for marriage." (from your source)
Something also has to be said about the fact that when a male torso is used in western classical architecture to hold up building elements, the males are depicted as Atlases - bulging muscles and veins, as well as strained expression visually amplifying the weight of the supported element. Masculinity is celebrated through the expression of raw physical power.
When female torsos are used, they are almost invariably depicted in a detached cool-calm-collected manner. The supported elements often appear to float above the figures, rather than as an obvious burden (the Maiden Porch at the Erechtion one of the finest examples of this effect). Robes slip off shoulders to bare breasts, showing skin at the hips, knees, and bare feet. The facial expressions are all welcoming smiles, if not at the edge of seductive suggestion or overt ecstasy. Femininity is celebrated through idealized bodies, but women are expected to hold things up without betraying the slightest hint of the difficulty of their labor, without forgetting to "Smile!"
Are you going to claim that this pronounced difference of attitude towards gender does not have some not-so-obvious cultural or ideological overtones?
The guys showed their pecs (and swords). The Greeks were sensitive to the human body, it's sensuousness. In the caryatids, they could have gone much further to exploit them erotically, and the frontal presentation was in the service of the institution of marriage, which literally and figuratively has value. There's some custom referred to that I don't think is well known, that I know zip about, that I suspect has little relevance now. But if you put them on a courthouse, the meanings would change.
The Greeks also faced the prospect of conquest (I'm out of my range here). Strength also meant survival in a world in perpetual battle. There's a knot here not so easily untangled. Obviously there is much from the Greeks we'd put aside now and can't justify then. I value their ability to manage contradictions without diminishing either side (Lapiths vs Centaurs), their ability to think abstractly and express their abstractions in vital ways that keep humans in the picture.
And no argument at all against your third comment. Of course the society was male oriented. That doesn't mean we chuck the style. Or the Greeks.
In fact, following my point about their recognition of conflict and opposition, I would say the best way to deal with the issues raised is not to try to settle this, but rather make both arguments and keep them together in opposition. Nothing is ever easy. Or black and white.
Masculinity is celebrated through the expression of raw physical power. In fact I'd say the caryatid reserve and composure in bodies still strong is much more appropriate for us now, after millennia of guys beating the crap out of each other. The caryatid stance is the way I'd like to stand.
Sans breasts.
These pensive girls with their broad, ripe, thrusting breasts seem eagerly poised for marriage.
I picked up this link on the fly and question it. The author is projecting his own impressions based on assumption when it's not clear what their purpose is. I don't know what the Greeks saw, but I just don't see this. These are strong, graceful women.
Here we have male and female—and Native American—supports in John McArthur Jr.’s Philadelphia City Hall:
Takes your breath away, right? Help yourself in interpreting this one.
Most of the sculptures are by Alexander Milne Calder, the grandfather of Alexander 'Sandy' Calder. Great work in quality, although colonialist in intent (the work IS on a building designed in the style called Second Empire/Napoleon III, after all).
Here's the south side with African American slave caryatids.
link to some other close-ups on the sculptures
here's some surface level research for supplementary readings to aid with interpreting the iconography on the western facade (the Native American caryatids):
The Lenape People (called Delaware by the settlers)
The Walking Purchase
In 1682, William Penn and Quaker colonists created the English colony of Pennsylvania beginning at the lower Delaware River. A peace treaty was negotiated between the newly arriving English and Lenape at what is now known as Penn Treaty Park. In the decades immediately following, some 20,000 new colonists arrived in the region, putting pressure on Lenape settlements and hunting grounds. Although Penn endeavored to live peaceably with the Lenape and to create a colony that would do the same, he also expected his authority and that of the colonial government to take precedence. His new colony effectively displaced many Lenape and forced others to adapt to new cultural demands. Penn gained a reputation for benevolence and tolerance, but his efforts resulted in more effective colonization of the ancestral Lenape homeland than previous ones.[45]
William Penn died in 1718. His heirs, John and Thomas Penn, and their agents were running the colony, and had abandoned many of the elder Penn's practices. Trying to raise money, they contemplated ways to sell Lenape land to colonial settlers. The resulting scheme culminated in the so-called Walking Purchase. In the mid-1730s, colonial administrators produced a draft of a land deed dating to the 1680s. William Penn had approached several leaders of Lenape polities in the lower Delaware to discuss land sales further north. Since the land in question did not belong to their polities, the talks came to nothing. But colonial administrators had prepared the draft that resurfaced in the 1730s. The Penns and their supporters tried to present this draft as a legitimate deed. Lenape leaders in the lower Delaware refused to accept it.
According to historian Steven Harper, what followed was a "convoluted sequence of deception, fraud, and extortion orchestrated by the Pennsylvania government that is commonly known as the Walking Purchase."[46] In the end, all Lenape who still lived on the Delaware were driven off the remnants of their homeland under threats of violence.
After the end of the Seven Years' War, Anglo-American settlers continued to kill Lenape, often to such an extent that the historian Amy Schutt writes the dead since the wars outnumbered those killed during the war.[49]
Settler Colonialism in the USA
The American bison was once the symbol of a vast, limitless country filled with seemingly endless land and equally endless opportunity. But American settlers soon ensured that the bison would ultimately symbolize the dark, ugly side of “manifest destiny.”
"The particular appeal to classical architecture often uses the nostalgic appropriation of style by fictionalizing national heritage and manufacturing an ideal subject to marginalize and other, while simultaneously claiming moral superiority. Neoclassicism in the US is directly related to the construction of whiteness."- TAL
A statement that is perfectly illustrated by the example of John McArthur Jr.’s Philadelphia City Hall.
Except that the Philadelphia City Hall is Second Empire, not neoclassical.
Thanks for this. I didn't look it up and dismissed it as sentimental nonsense, a mishmash of icons. But there must be critical recognition here, one of the saving graces of the nation. The Native Americans are too thin for the mass they support and they look rigid and grim. But their size, stance, and expression are because of the weight of the injustice they grimly bear. Their rigid stance is contrasted with the poses of the men they bear at the top of the pediment—settlers? railroad workers? hunters? miners?—prone and relaxed to the point of moral laxity and corruption. The odd heraldic treatment of the bison is heavily ironic and disturbing. If the composition seems a mishmash, it's because history is a mishmash itself. Still, this scene might have been tame enough to pass by the casual observer.
Caryatid is a term for women columns—and I think they have to be free standing? I'm a huge fan of Sandy Calder.
In short, this composition and the south gable are criticisms of empire in a Second Empire building (which has columns, etc. and references classical architecture).
Gary, I hate your non-arguments in favor of this somehow being a visual statement that is critical of the political power structure. The likelihood of Calder attempting to subvert the architect's decorative agenda with subtle hints in expression is close to NIL. If you find legit sources documenting any of this intent, please share. Otherwise you are willfully mis-reading the power dynamics depicted here...
Jonathan Swift's "A Modest proposal" was a critical piece of writing because it was depicting unbalanced social issues in a satirical mode - if he actually thought eating Irish babies was good for everyone involved, it would not be critical at all. If you think these statues were designed to commemorate and reconcile the crimes committed against Native populations and imported slave populations - you are plainly wrong.
btw, the South Side facade is the one with oppressed African columns (caryatid and telamon, since you insist on properly gendering the columns), it's the West Side that features native peoples.
this painting is not critical of the concept of "empire:
this one IS:
The first is intended to make the viewer sympathize with the hardships experienced by Napoleon's army during their attempted conquest of Russia. The second is intended to show the inhumanity of the conquerors, and the suffering of the conquered. Paintings are contemporaries to Neoclassisim in architecture/aka Empire Style, but examples from Second Empire/Neo-Baroque/whatever-name-imperialist-creative-mode can be provided too
killa, I don't buy that at all. I may dig this up later, but for now am trying to read what I see. Both the south and west gables depict oppressed, wronged people in ways that aren't sentimental or supportive at all, both bearing a weight hard to justify or explain, literally and figuratively, in contrast to the Greek maidens. There is parallel intent, south and west. And the eyes of the bison are just eerie. We're being asked a question. To say that this is the intent, to demonstrate power and the right to oppress would be a gross statement for the times. A "civilized" and "polite"—and racist and oppressive society, certainly in Philadelphia at this time—would present something much tamer and sentimental if they thought both behaviors were right. They want to ease people into acceptance. These gables are quite direct and disruptive. Also, this is public sculpture in a public building. Some decorum will apply here and Calder is working a middle ground. Goya had license with his private and, for a while, hidden painting. You're denying Calder any critical sensitivity or understanding at all based on the fact of the images, not their expression, execution, and assemblage. And without this critical interpretation, his west gable is just confusing and inept. He was an artist.
Compare with the pairing of George Washington in a high school that recently caused so much flack in San Francisco. Do you think this is a noncritical expression of empire?
See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...
In fact the gables, in expression and execution, are much closer to the Goya than the other.
And note the Meissonier does not show the oppressed and conquered. They would detract from his sympathies for Napoleon.
Curiously, I'm not finding much about this on a cursory search. You'd think it would feed flames. There's another possibility. Calder might be presenting a history-is-rough point of view without much condemnation, which would be problematic. At any rate, one thing is certain: we can't look at the gables now without questioning—and damning—what has happened in this country.
Greek Orders for Good
The only good coming from classical orders; scaffolding for modernity.
So, the people who wore those life jackets traveling to Greece were coming in spite of the classical architecture there?
Intentionally missing the point as usual.
The life jackets should have been attached to a fence at a restored German Concentration Camp?
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