Brutal I

In my last post I alluded to the current president's executive order titled Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again, which called for restricting the design of new federal buildings in the nation's capital to "traditional" styles of architecture, putting a special emphasis on the Classical Revival style.

The order, which was inspired by the National Civic Art Society * and presumably written by its president Justin Shubow,  refers to Classical Revival as promoted by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who:

sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity, reminding citizens not only of their rights but also their responsibilities in maintaining and perpetuating its institutions.

The order goes on: 

Applicable Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public. They should also be visually identifiable as civic buildings and, as appropriate, respect regional architectural heritage. Architecture — particularly traditional and classical architecture — that meets the criteria set forth in this subsection is the preferred architecture for applicable Federal public buildings. In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.

It then defines Classical architecture:

“Classical architecture” means the architectural tradition derived from the forms, principles, and vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity, and as later developed and expanded upon by such Renaissance architects as Alberti, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Palladio; such Enlightenment masters as Robert Adam, John Soane, and Christopher Wren; such 19th-century architects as Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Robert Mills, and Thomas U. Walter; and such 20th-century practitioners as Julian Abele, Daniel Burnham, Rafael Carmoega, Charles F. McKim, John Russell Pope, Julia Morgan, and the firm of Delano and Aldrich. Classical architecture encompasses such styles as Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco.

It goes on to define "Traditional Architecture":

“Traditional architecture” includes classical architecture, as defined herein, and also includes the historic humanistic architecture such as Gothic, Romanesque, Second Empire, Pueblo Revival, Spanish Colonial, and other Mediterranean styles of architecture historically rooted in various regions of America.

You don't need to be an architectural historian to realize this list of acceptable building types encompasses a wide range of architectural styles. 

So what kind of architecture is unacceptable according to the executive order?

In the 1960s, the Federal Government largely replaced traditional designs for new construction with modernist and brutalist ones. (emphasis mine) The Federal architecture that ensued, overseen by the General Services Administration (GSA), was often unpopular with Americans. The new buildings ranged from the undistinguished to designs even GSA now admits many in the public found unappealing. 

Later in the order Deconstructivist architecture is also mentioned. 

In other words, unacceptable architecture according to the executive order, is any architectural style born and bred in the twentieth century. 

In the last paragraph I quoted, the author mentions that these styles of architecture not only don't live up to the lofty intentions of our Founding Fathers, but they are also unpopular with the general public. 

On the homepage of the National Civic Art Society, there is a link to this page publishing the results of a Harris Poll which takes the temperature of the preferences of the American public in regards to architecture, specifically that of federal buildings. 

The poll consisted of seven side-by-side pairs of photographs, each pair consisting of a photo of a federal building built in a "traditional" style and one in a "modern" style. Then the survey asked participants to select in each pair which building they preferred. The comparison photographs were chosen carefully, using similar camera angles and light situations, so as not to skew the results based upon the quality of the photographs rather than the design of the buildings. 

In every case, more respondents picked the "traditional" style building over  the "modern" style on an average margin of about three to one. 

It goes without saying that the one thing each group had in common is that the "traditional " style buildings were all built before World War II and the "modern" style buildings were built after.

The NCAS uses these findings to argue that as the public (at least according to this poll) prefers "traditional" architecture to more contemporary styles, employing the former in the design of government buildings that are paid for by the public through taxpayer dollars is more in keeping with our democratic values than the top-down approach currently used to determine the design of these buildings. 

I suppose on a very superficial level, they have a point.

For what its worth, going through these very limited comparisons myself, I have to say that I personally disagreed with the majority opinion in all but one of the cases. That's not at all to say that I have a general preference of contemporary architecture, I don't. It's just that I found the older buildings chosen for the survey with the exception of one, to be rather uninspiring, while most of the newer buildings, to my eye anyway, could be described at the very least as interesting.

That's my opinion, take it or leave it. I'm not by trade an architectural historian but I do have a passion for the subject and I care a great deal about our built environment which hopefully comes across in this blog. 

Given that, should my opinion on the matter have more weight than the opinion of someone who has little interest in the subject?

Obviously in a democracy, we don't give weight to individual votes based upon the political knowledge of the voter; every individual's vote gets the same weight and that's exactly as it should be. On the other hand, the republic part of a democratic republic means that we vote for individuals to represent us, people who presumably know a thing or two about how government works, and vote on the issues before them based upon that knowledge. Theoretically anyway.

In other words, in a democratic republic, we the people don't get to vote on every issue that comes up before Congress, our State Legislature or our City Council. Rather it is our democratically elected representatives who do that. And that's a good thing because these folks generally (not always) know a thing or two more about these subjects than the average citizen.

In that vein it seems a little preposterous to me to have a referendum on the architectural style of every public building that gets built. And it seems even more preposterous in a democracy to have an edict from the president determining which architectural styles are appropriate and which are not.

Nonetheless, public opinion on the subject as well as the merits of different architectural styles are worthwhile topics to debate. Presidential edicts regarding the same are another story.

I'll discuss all of that in my next post.

Stay tuned!

* The following is the mission statement of the National Civic Art Society:

Founded in 2002, the National Civic Art Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. that educates and empowers civic leaders in the promotion of public art and architecture worthy of our great Republic. We do this by advancing the classical tradition in architecture, urbanism, and their allied arts. Through our programs and initiatives we guide government agencies and officials; assist practitioners; and educate students and the general public in the preservation and creation of beautiful, dignified public buildings, monuments, and spaces.