7 AM, Saturday, December 6, 2025 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org
Every President leaves a mark on the White House. Truman’s Balcony. Jackie’s Rose Garden. FDR’s East Wing. Design is how humans mark their homes. But some of us, a few, feel entitled to ignore where we are, deny who was before us, simply do what we want.
The present national administration has access to money, and no time for intellectual curiosity, and so has abandoned perspective: to the point where “STYLE” has replaced perspective. Finding substance in affect is compensation for a lack of understanding. Absent that understanding aesthetic triggers are applied by a monied Presidency to evoke “Traditional” – rendering that “STYLE” as a gloss of veneer that drenches fully non-traditional, in fact grotesque, acting out. In these extreme acts of hubris Design is not aesthetic but a weapon.
The mechanisms of cultural communication are abandoned in raging declarations: Gold is applied everywhere. The landscape plowed under. Flagpoles and giant boxes of building are surrounding the now quaint 19th century icon. Dialogue with anyone save the President to and with himself renders designers to be cyphering shills that enact tantrums of expression.
The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts was the public side of conversations about aesthetics in public design – including the White House https://www.newhavenindependent.org/2025/10/29/trump-boots-becker-from-arts-panel/ . Bruce Becker, architect, entrepreneur, and sustainability thought leader was fired from it by the administration that they would have ignored the Commission anyway. But the firing of volunteers to silence them, despite their having no power, is as violent as all the raged damage done to the meek White House.
Kurt Andersen understands American culture with a sweeping depth and breadth reflected in his writings, talks and public voice revealing the absurdities of today’s political and cultural chaos. He has been both critic and novelist, writing widely, including for the New York Times, Newsweek, New York Magazine and frequent appearances on scores of media platforms.
Martin Pedersen is a co-founder of the Common Edge Collaborative: a forum for the voices often absent from the usual suspects in design commentary: His work as Managing Editor at Metropolis Magazine connected him to the essence of what makes design integral in our culture. He is a founderv of the Podcast “Our Buildings, Our Selves” along the DESIGN NOW host Duo Dickinson.
We will talk on DESIGN NOW about the cultural synergy that no longer exists in our politics and, now, in public design.
