{"id":30363,"date":"2025-04-18T13:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T13:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30363\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T13:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T13:53:12","slug":"why-trump-could-be-europes-accidental-city-builder-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/30363\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump could be Europe\u2019s accidental city-builder \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the height of World War II, Adolf Hitler dreamed of developing rockets<\/a> that could destroy American cities. It\u2019s an irony of history that he not only failed to achieve this, but inadvertently helped shape the modern-day U.S. metropolis.<\/p>\n

Like countless<\/a> political<\/a> leaders<\/a> before him, Hitler considered the built environment a canvas for the projection of power. He recruited architects and urbanists who could reflect the Third Reich\u2019s values, and punished innovators whose \u201cdegenerate\u201d structures weren\u2019t aligned with the regime.<\/p>\n

Many of those persecuted visionaries eventually sought refuge in the U.S. There, they were instrumental in redefining the American city, creating the urban landscapes we know today.<\/p>\n

Nearly a century later, President Donald Trump is poised to provoke a new exodus \u2014 this time, in reverse.<\/p>\n

Urbanism in Trump\u2019s headlights<\/p>\n

The U.S. administration\u2019s recent moves to cancel<\/a> environmentally sensitive urban development projects, impose<\/a> an official style for federal buildings and target<\/a> free speech on college campuses are setting the stage for America\u2019s best and brightest city-builders to seek their fortunes across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Cruz Garc\u00eda \u2014 founder of the WAI Architecture Think Tank and an associate professor at Columbia University \u2014 told POLITICO of the instability facing those working on publicly funded projects, and highlighted the administration\u2019s decision to review 400 initiatives funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n

Concerned that environmental resilience projects serving historically marginalized communities<\/a> may be delayed, significantly altered or canceled, he noted that many people who had received grants for projects had already received termination notices. Federal cut-backs<\/a> \u201cdefinitely could, or would, potentially lead scholars to seek to continue their work abroad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to Billy Fleming, an associate professor at Temple University\u2019s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, \u00a0the \u201cfocus on kidnapping and deporting\u201d foreign students like Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri<\/a> or Tufts University researcher R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk<\/a> \u2014 who were both detained for attending pro-Palestinian campus protests \u2014 is also likely to undermine the U.S. as a destination for promising architects.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican schools of architecture have long relied on international students,\u201d he said. \u201cAttacks on student visa holders could upend their financial models and force the closure of smaller programs or departments. In those with smaller endowments [\u2026] it could lead to the closure of entire schools of architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the impact of Trump\u2019s measures extends beyond academia. Billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency has ordered mass layoffs and budget cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It also terminated<\/a> a $1 billion program to repair and climate-proof aging or damaged affordable homes, while jeopardizing a plan to build housing for thousands of low-income families<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Harvard\u2019s Graduate School of Design recruited Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. | Wikipedia<\/p>\n

The Department of Transportation has similarly ordered a review<\/a> of projects that \u201cimprove the condition for environmental justice communities or actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions\u201d and is considering canceling<\/a> federal funding for cycle lanes.<\/p>\n

Ruth Schagemann, president of the Architects\u2019 Council of Europe<\/a> \u2014 which represents the interests of over 500,000 architects from 36 countries \u2014 believes all this may \u201clead some architecture and urbanism professionals to relocate in search of environments where innovation, sustainability and academic openness are better supported.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical decisions can significantly influence the global flow of talent,\u201d she said. \u201cEurope\u2019s foundation in these areas positions it well to attract talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Targeted by totalitarianism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Historian Barbara Steiner, director of Bauhaus Dessau Foundation<\/a>, which preserves the legacy of the revolutionary German art school, sees a clear parallel between the 1930s and the present \u201cupheaval and uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on the way to a system of totalitarian coordination over all aspects of society from economy to the media, culture and education, of appearances, spaces and thinking in order to gain control over heterogeneous societies and critical discourse,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. architectural community has been particularly jarred by Trump\u2019s move to impose an official style on federal buildings, with an executive order<\/a> requiring they \u201crespect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage.\u201d A revival of a widely condemned<\/a> order he issued in 2020<\/a>, it has reminded many of mandates imposed by authoritarian leaders of the past.<\/p>\n

Immediately after taking power, Hitler had targeted architects whose aesthetics weren\u2019t aligned with his totalitarian regime. His particular b\u00eate noire was the Bauhaus<\/a> school due to its promotion of minimalist and functional design. And though the Third Reich was yet to developed its signature style \u2014 the heavy, stripped classicism that survives in Berlin\u2019s Olympiastadion<\/a> or Nuremberg\u2019s rally grounds<\/a> \u2014 Bauhaus represented the distinctly internationalist outlook it detested.<\/p>\n

Steiner said Nazi leaders attacked Bauhaus buildings for their rejection of \u201cregional traditions,\u201d for being \u201carchitectural sins that were cold, repellent and unattractive.\u201d The school\u2019s embrace of Jewish, foreign and progressive students and faculty also led them to denounce it as a hotbed for communists.<\/p>\n

And when the \u201cdegenerate\u201d institution was ultimately closed, with many of its members obliged to flee, America was waiting to receive them.<\/p>\n

The exiles that built America<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. universities tripped over themselves to take in Europe\u2019s displaced visionaries.<\/p>\n

Harvard\u2019s Graduate School of Design recruited Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, who served as a \u201chub between displaced European modernists and American architects\u201d and taught several generations of students to embed \u201cthe usefulness of sociology\u201d into their designs, Steiner said. The sleek, modern \u201cInternational Style\u201d he promoted would come to define the aesthetics and layout of U.S. cities for decades to come.<\/p>\n

Many of that movement\u2019s most iconic U.S. buildings would eventually be designed by the last Bauhaus director, Mies van der Rohe, who joined the Illinois Institute of Technology after leaving Germany. His steel-and-glass residential towers<\/a> on Chicago\u2019s Lake Shore Drive became an instant reference point<\/a> for high-rise housing, while his Seagram Building<\/a> in New York inspired countless knockoffs<\/a> in business districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cMies reimagined downtowns,\u201d said Timothy Welch, director of the University of Auckland\u2019s Urban Planning Program. \u201cHis tower-in-a-park model created a new urban typology \u2014 open plazas surrounding minimalist skyscrapers.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the impact wasn\u2019t just on urban areas, it also seeped into America\u2019s sprawl, cementing the aesthetic of the standardized suburban single-family home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hitler\u2019s particular b\u00eate noire was the Bauhaus school due to its promotion of minimalist and functional design. | Alexander Savin via Wikipedia<\/p>\n

Many who made their way to the U.S. had been involved in the progressive city-building projects of 1920\u2019s \u201cRed Vienna<\/a>,\u201d and their socially minded outlook helped shape California\u2019s postwar suburbs, explained architectural historian Volker M. Welter. Leopold Fischer<\/a>\u2019s well-known Los Angeles neighborhood of detached houses, for example, were a \u201ctranslation\u201d of the social housing estates<\/a> he built with Gropius in 1920\u2019s Dessau \u2014 a reflection of the European vision of \u201carchitectural modernism as a social commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the exiled European architect who perhaps had the most profound impact on U.S. cities was Austria\u2019s relatively unknown Victor Gruen. Both Jewish and a committed socialist, he was forced to flee after the Anschluss and eventually settled in California, where he was repulsed by the period\u2019s car-centric culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cGruen internalized a vision of urbanism centered on human-scaled, socially integrated spaces,\u201d Welch said. And in a bid to recreate \u201cVienna\u2019s caf\u00e9 culture and walkable streets,\u201d he invented the shopping mall \u2014 a space meant to shield consumers from traffic by combining housing, civic facilities, public amenities and shops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony, of course, is that his solutions were ultimately coopted by the very forces of commercialization and automobility he fought against,\u201d Welch commented. But while most malls became, in Gruen\u2019s own words, \u201cavenues of horror,\u201d the faithful adaptation of his concept in Kalamazoo<\/a> inspired the creation of pedestrian zones in dozens of cities.<\/p>\n

Gruen introduced \u201cideas about pedestrian priority, mixed-use development and public space that would later become central to [\u2026] contemporary urban design.\u201d<\/p>\n

America\u2019s brain drain<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the full impact of Trump\u2019s ongoing MAGA measures remains to be seen, Europe already stands out as a potential haven for U.S. architects and urbanists.<\/p>\n

Tania Guti\u00e9rrez-Monroy, an architectural historian and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, said the administration\u2019s budget cuts meant it is no longer \u201cfar-fetched\u201d to imagine researchers working on urban climate resilience or equity projects leaving the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt what point does continuing this work abroad become the more viable \u2014 or ethical \u2014 choice?,\u201d asked architect Cruz Garc\u00eda. <\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s universities and governments are keen to welcome modern-day intellectual \u00e9migr\u00e9s and have set up recruitment drives<\/a> to compliment existing research schemes like Erasmus+, Horizon Europe and the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Actions.<\/p>\n

Schagemann emphasized that Europe offers forward-thinking \u00e9migr\u00e9 architects plenty of professional opportunities too.<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s \u201crobust investment in urban resilience, sustainable mobility, green infrastructure and affordable housing,\u201d with legislative packages like the Green Deal<\/a> and programs like the New European Bauhaus<\/a>, means there\u2019s a strong \u201cdemand for innovative, socially engaged, and environmentally conscious design,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope\u2019s commitment to these goals [show] that architecture and urban planning are not just technical challenges \u2014 they are acts of leadership,\u201d Schagemann added. \u201cThey are about building the future we believe in \u2014 one that reflects European values and aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the height of World War II, Adolf Hitler dreamed of developing rockets that could destroy American cities.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[17648,28,18108,32,295,2000,6562,299,5187,18109,2348,18110,6657,6646,8720,18111,49,5732],"class_list":{"0":"post-30363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-buildings","10":"tag-climate-adaptation","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-eu27","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-european","17":"tag-higher-education","18":"tag-history","19":"tag-living-cities","20":"tag-migration","21":"tag-public-funding","22":"tag-resilience","23":"tag-society-and-culture","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-urban-mobility"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114359304542375807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}