In 1962, the cash-strapped Pennsylvania Railroad Company announced plans to demolish the original Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and sell the site’s air rights to a private developer, enabled by Robert Moses. In 1963, developer Erwin S. Wolfson—again, aided by Moses—tore down the elegant and iconic 1910 structure, designed by McKim, Mead and White. In its place, architect Charles Luckman was happy to design a Frankenstein polyglot of construction, which opened in 1968: a new Madison Square Garden, a nondescript office tower, and a train station relegated to a cramped basement. It was the very definition of profit-über-alles. 

At the time, virtually anyone could demolish any privately owned building for any reason. That raw power grab provoked such a visceral, intense, and near-universal outrage that New York City was prompted to create the Landmarks Commission. That act was needed because the existing 1906 Antiquities Act and 1935 Historic Sites Act offered no protection from private development. In 1966, the National Historic Places Act created the National Register of Historic Places and State Historic Preservation Offices.

Fast forward 59 years and turn your eyes to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. For the first time in almost six decades, the country is once again sickened over the brutal destruction of a historic structure: the East Wing of the White House. In both instances, the clients acted because they could. As with Penn Station, the destruction of the East Wing embodies an arrogance facilitated by cash. And as it turns out, we have come to learn, beyond tradition and cultural protocols, the White House is unprotected in regard to this modification.

Clients who build have more than ideas or ego; they have the final architectural lubricant: money. Pennsylvania Railroad received $22.5 million for the air rights (about $244 million today), and the train-riding public was ushered into a gloomy subterranean space, where they remain today. Without the purchased air rights, the project would not have happened. Which is to say: The design was largely determined before the architect was even hired. 

Donald Trump has demolished a portion of the White House because he has access to at least $300,000,000. Other presidents have tinkered with the building’s architecture, but they followed a longstanding tradition of consultation and public comment, and often used public funds. 

The realization of a client’s dream is seldom dependent on the designer. Instead, it’s guided by just two limitations: the regulations that need to be addressed, and the money needed to build what is desired. Wolfson and Trump had taken care of both of these before they removed history from our culture. 

The physical acts of demolition and construction can have moral outcomes for a society, to the point of permanently damaging its very fabric. However, in a democracy, laws follow values (at least, they’re supposed to). Whether found in constitutional amendments that overturn national laws, or are embodied in new laws, our legal constructs limit the ways individuals can act. In the AEC industry, however, the individual that acts is the client. 

Architects can and do make ugly buildings, but only clients can have ugly intentions, which design cannot overcome.

 

Architects can and do make ugly buildings, but only clients can have ugly intentions, which design cannot overcome. No matter how brilliant they may be, architects are responsible for their acquiescence to clients, whose desires eclipse any and all other meanings. Consider Albert Speer.

It’s convenient for designers to blame their clients. Every gathering of architects is fraught with client-bashing excuses for buildings’ not living up to their designer’s hopes. But in the case of Nazi Germany, Penn Station, and the East Wing, the grotesqueries of each project were the unavoidable consequence of the client’s mission. You can’t make beauty out of immoral intent. 

The U.S. government does codify cultural values: mandating sustainability, handicapped accessibility, even belt-and-suspenders life safety requirements. The values embodied in our land-use laws often reinforce what our society, at every level, wants. The outrage over this unthinking violence at the White House will have legal consequences, just like the anger over Penn Station’s demolition did.

The core collision between the personal freedoms of clients and the social values of the communities they build in is nothing new. But what is unusual is the intense, raw, and universal revulsion that we feel in our reactions to the architecture of Speer, the destruction of Penn Station, and the “new” East Wing of the White House. The values that drove the first two monstrosities arguably spawned World War II and the historic preservation movement, respectively. What will result from our current disgust?

Featured image via Yahoo News.