Docomomo US Counters Executive Orders

Author

Liz Waytkus

Affiliation

Docomomo US

Tags

Advocacy
Image details

Docomomo US Counters Executive Orders

The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building

Credit

Photograph by Carol Highsmith. Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Dear Docomomo US members, friends, and colleagues, 

 

I write to you on what is a lovely Thursday afternoon in early spring from our modest headquarters in New York City. While our work advocating for the Modern places you love continues, we are deeply concerned by the vast changes being made by the executive branch of our federal government. It seems like every day and every hour we hear news about new executive orders that directly impact the important work of those preserving our country’s heritage, including mass layoffs and reduction of staff at critical agencies we work with, and new federal policies that seek to minimize, distort, or obliterate the contributions of our diverse tapestry of people, history, and places that makes this country so culturally rich and stimulating. 

 

All of this is overwhelming and challenges us to stay focused while our country is being drastically reshaped. By the very nature of our mission, pushing boundaries to preserve Modern architecture, landscapes, and design through principled advocacy, collaboration, and celebration, we fundamentally disagree with the current administration and those who see Modernism as ugly and not worth preserving or the style of a totalitarian government. Docomomo US spoke out against executive orders promoting a distorted view of Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, and we are steadfast in our mission to protect this heritage. We counter the recent executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” with a renewed commitment to telling the full and diverse stories of Modernism in America. Docomomo US maintains an active diversity, equity, and inclusion committee and follows a guiding principles document that acknowledges the complicated narrative of the mid-twentieth century. We will continue to support, celebrate, and learn from the contributions of historically underrepresented communities. Our guiding principles are embedded in everything we do and act as a north star. 

 

Docomomo US continues to be excited to host the 19th International Docomomo Conference (IDC) in Los Angeles next March. The IDC is an incredible opportunity to convene our global community and celebrate the rich culture, diverse communities, and Modern traditions of Los Angeles. The IDC will highlight the enduring spirit of creativity spawned in the late twentieth century and investigate the everyday, ordinary Modern architecture that is so common in communities around the world. And yet as we open the call for abstracts, we are retooling the IDC to be a hybrid event, as many countries across the globe issue travel advisories warning against travel to the United States, and as the perception of traveling here becomes increasingly fraught. 

 

In recent days, much of our focus has been on the proposal to dispose of government-owned buildings such as the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building. Designed by Marcel Breuer, it has been the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development since it opened in 1968. The Weaver building is one of the most significant Modern buildings in Washington D.C., and we continue to agree with President Johnson, who at the time of its opening called it, “bold and beautiful.” Docomomo US is actively working to understand the disposal process and how it may impact the future of the Weaver Building. This is one of many significant Modern buildings that may be sold by the government, and as I write this, we are assembling a taskforce to understand how we might best use our voice to ensure a future for these significant buildings. If you have expertise that might be critical in supporting these efforts, please reach out to us.

 

Our office continues to discuss opportunities for Docomomo US to be a repository of information that may be deleted, removed, or destroyed by the current administration. We are following stories about data dumps; materials being removed from government websites; and whole library collections on architecture, historic preservation, and technology being given away. If you are aware of such information needing a new or temporary home, please let us know so that we may consider how our organization might play a role in their safekeeping. 

 

While we are deeply concerned about these changes, we are grateful to all of you for your support of our work and for our shared belief that through community and collaboration we can and will get through this moment together.

 

 


Liz Waytkus

Executive Director
Docomomo US

 

Featured Sites

Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, Headquarters for Department of Housing and Urban Development

Designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1968, the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington D.C. was the first federal building constructed under President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 "Guiding Principles of Federal Architecture." It was also the first federal building to use precast concrete for both structural and aesthetic purposes and the first to embrace modular design. The building’s sculptural precast concrete forms, unique windows, and curvilinear “X” floor plan are a clear extension of the architectural aesthetic Breuer worked with in the IBM La Guarde building in 1961, and even earlier at the UNSECO building in Paris in the mid-1958. Breuer’s original landscaping for the six-acre site, which called for a flagstone paved plaza, concrete lampposts, bollards, and a monumental sign was not fully implemented until 1976.