Architects and Engineers Debate Ethics of Responding to Trump Administration

This post unpacks a recent discussion among leading architecture scholars and practitioners about how the profession should ethically respond to federal executive orders favoring classical architecture. The conversation — featuring Renee Cheng, Nancy Levinson, Ana Miljački, Justin Garrett Moore, and Casius Pealer — reframes the issue as a test of professional values and civic responsibility, not just an aesthetic preference.

Why the federal design mandate is a moral test for architects

The panel argued that executive orders promoting classical styles are not neutral design directives. They can be used to support exclusionary and authoritarian politics.

This puts architects in a position where responding only on aesthetic grounds misses the larger ethical stakes. The profession must decide whether to enable policies that harm vulnerable communities or to resist them.

What the panelists emphasized

Panelists stressed that architects must consider the broader social and political impact of their work. Ana Miljački referenced Bartleby, the Scrivener to suggest collective, principled resistance rather than isolated refusals.

Nancy Levinson warned that using culture as a weapon recalls past regimes that censored art and restricted civic discourse. Casius Pealer urged focusing public conversations on innovation and civic benefit, not style.

Renee Cheng suggested that organizations like the AIA could shift the dialogue toward functionality, cost, and measurable design performance. Justin Garrett Moore and Levinson also called for expanding architecture’s civic role by connecting design to social repair and democratic values.

Practical ethical strategies for the profession

The panel proposed actionable steps for architects, guided by professional ethics and collective action. They stressed that the moral test applies to specific commissions, including those that could support detention, segregation, or other discriminatory practices.

Architects must be prepared to refuse work that violates core ethical principles.

Concrete steps architects can take

To support an ethics-forward practice, the conversation outlined several strategies for individuals and institutions:

Rebuilding trust and expanding civic purpose

The panel agreed that confronting these mandates is a chance for architecture to reclaim its public purpose. Honest reflection on the field’s shortcomings must be paired with efforts to reconnect design with democratic values.

Final thoughts for practice and policy

For practitioners and firms, the takeaway is clear: resist reducing design to style under political pressure. Instead, foreground the profession’s responsibility to protect human dignity and civic life.

Design performance, equity, and public engagement offer a robust, defensible alternative to aesthetic mandates. This approach reasserts architecture’s role in shaping a just and democratic built environment.

 
Here is the source article for this story: Five respondents discuss the ethics of how to respond to the Trump administration