With Donald Trump issuing his executive order calling for future federal buildings to be “beautiful,” I extended my Twitter thread contrasting comparable buildings from before and after WWII, such as upscale municipalities’ city halls, other government buildings, public libraries and the like. The order is pretty rambling, but people seemed to like it.
In contrast to the many pictures online of the 1932 Beverly Hills City Hall, here is the only picture I can find of the Malibu City Hall: pic.twitter.com/oDmu9bnYwL
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) February 10, 2020
One reason for the dichotomy is that Beverly Hills in 1932 saw a spectacular city hall as good advertising for attracting newcomers to Beverly Hills to buy up its empty lots. In contrast, modern Malibu doesn’t want more residents. Its civic motto is “Get out of Malibu, Lebowski!”
In contrast, the 1963 Orange Government Center in Goshen, NY by Paul Rudolph: Tentacle Porn Brutalism pic.twitter.com/nCOOnTH3Yd
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
Buffalo City Hall, 1931: looks like where Superman would fight bad guys. pic.twitter.com/MM7EhHqg3x
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
And win.
Not surprisingly, construction began a month before the stock market crash of October 1929.
Thom Mayne's 2005 federal building in San Francisco. Starchitect Mayne is secretly an anti-government extremist who designs ugly and misanthropic government buildings because he hates bureaucrats and wants them to suffer from 9 to 5 every day of the work week. pic.twitter.com/WO54TIaAgj
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
That’s just a joke. Mayne is a leftist. He doesn’t hate bureaucrats in particular, he hates everybody.
The 7 Ugliest Government Buildings In Washington, D.C.https://t.co/dvk44EIQqK via @bennyjohnson
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
Many of the best buildings in America were commissioned during the Roaring Twenties, when money, high spirits, and (surprisingly) good taste, were abundant, although some, like Buffalo's stupendous city hall, weren't finished until after the Crash of 1929.
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
St. Francis de Sales, the 1959 Danish Modern Roman Catholic church in Sherman Oaks, CA: pic.twitter.com/y7fxuZYrSO
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 22, 2020
Here's a rare transitional city hall from between the stock market crash of 1929 and 1945: Santa Monica's from 1938. It's far more austere than Roaring 20s city halls like Pasadena's and Beverly Hills', but it's still dignified and nicely detailed. pic.twitter.com/Hh7W8yD8xy
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 23, 2020
But in 1963, De Gaulle's Culture Minister Andre Malraux had grimy Notre Dame blasted with high pressure hoses ... and it came out looking wonderful.
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 23, 2020
Over time people started to appreciate more their once again sparkling old buildings.
Palm Springs City Hall, 1952. It's celebrated for coming up with a few Modernist adaptations suitable for a hot climate, although the Spanish and Arabs had done it better centuries before: pic.twitter.com/XIeGTEOpm3
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 23, 2020
San Diego has been talking for a decade about replacing its boring 1964 modernist skyscraper city hall. Here's one high-budget plan: a lot of Thom Mayne random folderol, but the basic idea of making it the shape of a sailboat's sail is pleasant, at least from the outside. pic.twitter.com/dUJxrhqv6p
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 23, 2020
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 23, 2020
All this isn't to say that it's impossible for a talented-enough architect to create something beautiful in just about any style. But the headwinds began blowing against achieving beauty with the 1929 stock market crash and turned into a gale by 1945.
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
“You people, you like domes, right? Okay, okay, we’ll build you a dome out in the front of city hall for your tacky weddings and proms. But we’re not going to taint the architectural integrity of the actual San Jose city hall by including a dome in the main building.”
For example, here's Richard Meier's 2016 San Jose, CA city hall, which has been Thom Mayneized-Richard Gehryized with what looks like lots of chain link fencing attached at random to the outside: pic.twitter.com/CPNjr0ZaCD
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
But I'm guessing that San Jose's 2016 po-mo City Hall lags behind San Francisco's astonishing 1915 beaux arts city hall for wedding photography: pic.twitter.com/hVXvKnv2BP
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
Here's Tom Wolfe's 1970 description of the interior of the San Francisco City Hall from "Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers:" pic.twitter.com/aZC9SDqQUY
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
Tourists like to hang out on the steps in front of the New York Public Library: pic.twitter.com/kzdFP23b1J
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
The New Zealand parliament has altruistically soldiered on with their 1897 Parliamentary Library: pic.twitter.com/52PG9AcgF6
— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) December 24, 2020
