Quite some time ago I embarked on a project researching variations in vernacular buildings across the USA. I bought a 3-month Greyhound Bus ticket. Student poverty kept me on the bus almost full-time, looking out the windows and humming Simon and Garfunkel. In the end I visited all 48 continental states.

I saw LA Spanish Mission, San Fran Victorian, South-West adobe, prairie style in the plains, New Orleans Creole, North-East salt box, Chicago clapboard, balloon frame, Amish barns and more. But despite the plethora of regional designs, the variety appeared modest in comparison to music: pop, Appalachian folk, rhythm and blues, jazz (trad and rad), country AND western, bluegrass, rock and roll, emergent hip-hop, Cajun, zydeco, mariachi, Broadway musicals, and much more.

Friends who know of this journey, and my frequent return visits to the USA, ask my opinion about the sh**show they voted for last year. I offer the idea of the disunited States of America. (BTW, Never ‘America’ – that’s two continents. Never ‘United States’ – that’s also Estados Unidos Mexicanos). More like disUSA.

I mention this as entrée evidence of a land of extremes. Both brilliantly good and excruciatingly bad. This might be a good time to remind ourselves that not everything American has been ‘enshittified’. Somewhere in the ‘Land of the Free’ the pendulum is inevitably swinging back. Even in architecture, where we might examine what the President is building.

I subscribe to the theory that Trump had to serve two terms so that the populous could discover just how bad the loony right wing fascists behind him really are. They needed to have a turn, as it were, to get it out of their system. But along the way, it’s horrible. The physical metaphor is Trump destroying democracy by literally destroying the East Wing, for it to be replaced with a vainglorious uber-Versailles.

Meanwhile, in a park in South Chicago, another President is embroiled in controversy over building a monument. The Barack Obama Presidential Centre. More than the usual ‘library’, it’s a museum and education project, with a community building and conference centre. Built now in a city laid siege to by Trump.

Despite being ordered by Presidential edict, built at the same time to be completed contemporaneously, they could not be more different.

Trump unilaterally appointed James McCrery as White House Ballroom (WHB) architect. He trained under Peter Eisenman before converting to traditional architecture, perfect for the nostalgic neo-classical revival so beloved of right-wingers throughout history. The Obama Foundation held a two-stage competition for the Obama Presidential Center (OPC). Finalists included John Ronan Architects, Adjaye Associates, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Renzo Piano, SHoP Architects, and Snøhetta.

That’s a considered roll call of the best of USA contemporary design, with Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects worthy winners. Not as well-known as others (despite a visit to an AIA conference in Sydney 20 years ago), they have designed exquisite schemes. My favourites include the The Neurosciences Institute at the Scripps Centre near Kahn’s Salk and the NY American Folk Art Museum, sadly demolished for a MOMA expansion. Check out the work in their Work/Life book.

Trump rushed the process, demolishing without any reference to the authorities that oversee the Washington monuments. The Obama Foundation negotiated the site and design issues from 2014 to 2018, and was still rearranging the surrounding park at the original opening date in 2021 (now 2026). 10 artists for 9 artworks were added this year.

The difference in design intent is blatant: personal aggrandisement versus a community offering (including a branch of the Chicago Library). And the designs speak volumes: the WHB is a retreat into an overblown nonsense of an aristocratic past. The demolition of the East Wing is only the first of its egregious mistakes. The OPC looks to a greener future in buildings of our times. That adventurism is not without its critics, including an article by Ross Douthat, a columnist at the New York Times.

Every time I hear of something appalling in the USA, I console myself that somewhere there is an opposite. Every time I see the Trump atrocity, I seek out an image of the OPC. A community centre within the city that offers the very thing on Shepard Fairey’s posters: hope. The fairly large centre tower appears a taut and tight vertical village of rooms immaculately detailed, very much up to the contemporary minute. USA's greatest living architects, IMHO.

Every Trump dope is opposed by an Obama hope.

Cross-Sections are Friday musings from Tone Wheeler, following on from the Tone on Tuesday columns. Remember: amateurs draw plans, professionals draw sections; never at cross purposes.

Tone Wheeler

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