Back in April, Dwell contributor Anjulie Rao and I discussed her writing a story for which she would ask local architects, landscape designers, and urban planners in the D.C. area what they thought about the various architectural plans making headlines in their district. Negative headlines about the East Wing ballroom and the so-called “Arc de Trump” were ubiquitous enough, so what could the problem be with asking for unfiltered opinions? Rao soon found out no one was willing to go on the record against the current administration. Not because they are aligned with it, necessarily, but because there are highly practical reasons for architects to keep things as copacetic as possible with the government.
So, Rao pivoted. She spoke with design professionals from the U.S. and Canada about their experiences with speaking out and the particular reasons why they’ve avoided it. The result is a story that gets real about what’s holding people in this line of work back from telling it like it is. The heart of the issue, per Rao: “Architecture is fundamentally beholden to capital, and that capital has many, many strings attached.”
—River Davies, Market Editor
