A new bill introduced by Republican Indiana representative Jim Banks has once again returned the years-old debate around Classicism and the design of federal government buildings first begun by Donald Trump during the final year of his Presidency.
Banks’ proposed new H.R. 3627 bill — titled the "Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act" — expands on the Trump era executive order to "make federal buildings beautiful again" via the establishment of a new President's Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture and advocacy for styles of "traditional architecture" including Gothic, Romanesque, Pueblo Revival, Spanish Colonial, and Mediterranean that Banks feels are endemic to the United States.
The bill also denounces the Brutalist style espoused by Paul Rudolph and others at midcentury in deference to the neo-classical designs used in the Supreme Court and U.S. Capitol buildings — despite its widely-known legacy as a style preferred not only by figures like Thomas Jefferson but also by the wider planter class in the Antebellum South to which the University of Virginia founder and many other contemporaries belonged.
Banks told Fox News: "The intentional design of some of our greatest landmarks goes back to our Founding Fathers, who knew the importance architecture played in the establishment of American culture. Requiring all new construction be thoughtfully developed in that same spirit preserves American exceptionalism and ensures federal buildings serve as a beautiful testament to our nation’s greatest ideals for generations to come."
The Biden Administration officially repealed its predecessor’s agency-wide executive order to mandate styles in the design of federal buildings in February of 2021, offering what some had hoped would be an end of the protracted debate begun by Trump's comments and later actions the year prior.
In the unlikelihood that the new bill is eventually passed and signed into law by Biden, the Council it calls for would include both current and former Chairs of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, including possibly Justin Shubow, whom Biden ousted in May of that year after refusing to resign. The new Architect of the Capitol, the Commissioner of the Public Building Service Administration, and the Chief Architect of the Administration would round out the panel.
"It is crucial that the design of federal buildings reflects the preferences of ordinary Americans — namely, that such buildings be beautiful, uplifting, and designed in a classical or traditional style," Shubow told the network in support of the measure. "Whereas the current government process for choosing building designs involves zero input from the community, this legislation democratizes design by requiring that there be substantial input from the general public."
The first congressional vote on the bill is expected shortly.
19 Comments
Should also mandate a return to rotary phones
These guys are selling fascism under a cloak of beauty. As the 19th century philosopher Stendhal said, 'There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness' and last I checked, the Constitution protects the pursuit of happiness. This is just another phoney culture war from those who don't believe in the marketplace of ideas.
We don’t need buildings for fascism. Both parties are doing just find ushering fascism with whatever architecture.
True, but it sure helps. See 1930's Germany. As for the parties, they both have extremes for sure, but one is veering towards fascism.
"a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual citizen"
You are getting hung up on style. The democrats and republicans are 2 styles of the same thing- fascism. One would have to be pretty naive enough to believe that the most powerful empire that's ever existed has 2 parties that can knock the ship off course in any meaningful way...Its WWF wrestling. and the wrestlers ain't running the show. One is playing the old fashion bad guy with waving fists and neo classical buildings, and the other is playing the hip good guy with crawling censorship bots and brave new modern buildings. Fucked either way. At least the dullards among us can recognize the former...the latter is too camouflaged for their distracted brains to notice.
Both sides both sides both sides. Google overton window, simpleton.
If you still believe that the democrats are better after all that’s been revealed you are a very dumb person.
If you still believe that the democrats and republicans are 2 styles of the same thing, you are a very du... oh, wait. We already knew that.
Oh no, the democrats are currently way worse…they just beat W for worst admin of all time.
To be addled is to be fuzzy in the head, a little foggy and confused. When you're addled, you're having trouble thinking.
I am very, very to the left politically....but also know how modernism has destroyed and continues to destroy our communities and our cities. As a humanist, I find 95% of modern buildings within cities to be cold, aggressive, wasteful of existing embodied resources, inconsiderate and disrespectful of their neighbors, willfully void of decoration/character/genus loci/human scale/haptics/temporal continuity -- and therefore not beautiful. I wish architects who have drunk the Kool-Aid could see that the cult of originality, newness for newness sake, creating a new architecture every Monday morning, and the need to impress one's colleagues is the real dead end in the marketplace of ideas.
Does your computer have an entablature or cornice? How about your smartphone, is it connected by a wire to a tin can? Does a horse pull your car?
xoxoxo wrote:
“I am very, very to the left politically....but also know how modernism has destroyed and continues to destroy our communities and our cities. As a humanist, I find 95% of modern buildings within cities to be cold, aggressive, “
So, because you don’t like it its shouldn’t be allowed?
“wasteful of existing embodied resources, “
No more wasteful than classical architecture.
“inconsiderate and disrespectful of their neighbors, willfully void of decoration/character/genus loci/human scale/haptics/temporal continuity -- and therefore not beautiful. “
So again, only your opinion matters?
“I wish architects who have drunk the Kool-Aid could see that the cult of originality, newness for newness sake, creating a new architecture every Monday morning, and the need to impress one's colleagues is the real dead end in the marketplace of ideas.”
Your fear of change me think you’ve never had an original idea of your own.
A balance is needed, but not this bill...
The rise of boring architecture -- and the case for radically human buildings
https://www.ted.com/talks/thom...
advocacy for styles of "traditional architecture" including Gothic, Romanesque, Pueblo Revival, Spanish Colonial, and Mediterranean that Banks feels are endemic to the United States
Sounds pretty darn multicultural to me. And all of these styles are immigrants.
Actually, Pueblo Revival is native.
neo-classical designs used in the Supreme Court and U.S. Capitol buildings — despite its widely-known legacy as a style preferred not only by figures like Thomas Jefferson but also by the wider planter class in the Antebellum South to which the University of Virginia founder and many other contemporaries belonged
It was also the style of many (most?) abolitionist state houses, and all civil rights legislation was passed in the Capitol. This fallacy of association is getting old. We debase ourselves and the culture when we stoop to the extremists' level of thinking. They may make this association. We don't have to.
Keep it classy, Obama!
I think a manufactured culture war is a needless waste of intellect and imagination.
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