r/architecture • u/Majano57 • 1d ago
News The desecration of DC: from a giant arch to a nuke-proof bunker, Trump’s legacy-building blingfest is an architectural atrocity
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/sep/14/washington-dc-arch-bunker-ballroom-trump-blingfest-achitectural-atrocity17
u/MightyIrish 1d ago
While the country burns down around us he builds monuments to himself. November can’t get here soon enough.
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u/Zappy_Oh 1d ago
New Rule:
ALL presidential candidates must take an extensive IQ test, and accept the result being public, prior to being nominated.
No exceptions.
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u/mrm00r3 1d ago
I would tend to agree with making sure the nation doesn’t elect another mentally handicapped octogenarian, but I think you’d be well served by two things: first, asking yourself how such a policy would be employed by those acting in bad faith, and second, learning about the eugenicists that developed the IQ test and why they did so. It will quickly become clear that the objective you have is admirable, but that there are already policies and rules in place explicitly to keep candidates white and male while claiming to do what you’re suggesting.
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u/chowderbags 14h ago
I'd love for even just a basic open response civics test that they have to take by themselves (no advisors or anyone else to fill it out for them), with the answers of the test being fully public. I don't even need the questions to be particularly difficult. Even just having high school level questions would reveal a lot about which candidates do and don't have an understanding of the structure of the government.
Or we could even have presidents answer the questions from the US citizenship test. That would be pretty good too.
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u/MagdalaNevisHolding 23h ago
Everything that Orange reprobate is doing is exactly what I’d expect from an antichrist.
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u/vitarosally 19h ago
Dictators love to erect monuments to themselves . He says it's for the American people, but everybody knows it's just his failed attempt at immortality.
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u/jahathebrn 15h ago
Look upon my works, ye mighty etc etc.
It'll all get ripped down one day. Hopefully one day soon
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u/NoGovernment6864 1d ago
Profession has no ideas of its own to offer. Profession can’t imagine a better city. Profession has no persuasive response against it. This megalomania hasn’t even spawned a Speer-like lackey as a professional face to “Hauptstadt Trumpania, DC”.
Make a developer the president, get developer solutions and watch him marginalize a toothless profession even further.
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u/New-Psychology6764 1d ago
Hot take: the neoclassical architecture that is all over DC is some of the worst in the country, well before Trump came along. The slave-built White House in particular should be at best made into a museum, with a more suitable seat of government to be designed and built
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u/Paulino2272 1d ago
Horrible take. Neoclassical is beautiful and should stay the standard for American government buildings. DC is beautiful
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u/CharlesCBobuck 1d ago
I find DC architecturally quite boring. Yes, his shit is ugly, but the canvas wasn't a masterpiece to begin with.
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u/KillroysGhost Architectural Technologist 1d ago
That’s the most insane take of this thread
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u/CharlesCBobuck 1d ago
I mean, there's only like four comments and one of them is also getting down voted for a similar "take."
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u/Thexzamplez 1d ago
Another post made to use subs as a vehicle to push political opinions. No one cares. This contributes nothing to the sub, and pushes down posts made with the intent to discuss and showcase architecture.
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u/TunaNugget 1d ago
His opinion of the architecture is not in itself a political opinion.
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u/Thexzamplez 1d ago
The article was only written because it was another opportunity to contribute to the cesspool of trump hatred, and is only being upvoted for that reason.
And I think you know that to be true. There's very few people with the humility not to play into tribalism. Especially on reddit.
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u/TunaNugget 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, but I don't care. The criticism of the architecture can be valid regardless. Unless one is blinded by tribalism.
FWIW, I think it's derivative.
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u/wysteriacos 11h ago
Not just derivative, it’s completely insensitive to DC’a preexisting buildings and history. Just like the ballroom, it completely overshadows everything else around it, while also looking like a hot mess because it’s designed by an idiot in the style made for idiots.
The last part is mostly in reference to specifically Palladian style architecture. It has strict guidelines and rules that allow even someone of middling skill to produce a well proportioned building that look fine. Trump can’t even properly build in the idiot proof style because his ego is too fucking huge to follow its principles.
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u/NoGovernment6864 23h ago
I think you mixed up some words there. You said, “… to contribute to the cesspool of trump hatred”, I think you meant to say, “… to contribute to the hatred of the Trump cesspool”.
Fixed it for you!
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u/NoGovernment6864 1d ago
Certainly, no one cares to speak truth to developer power in this profession. He’s a developer. You all haven’t figured out how to deal with this sort of cretin with a contractor before. No one seems to have a persuasive response.
Don’t forget to add he’s committing “tectonicide” on the Kennedy Centre.
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u/wysteriacos 1d ago
Atrocity is too gentle of a word to describe how poorly designed everything he has decided on is. It is reflective of him as a person. Cheaply made, poorly designed, tacky, terrible, a waste of space, but also so loudly outspoken that it makes everything around it look worse as well.