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Featuring Brad Charron, CEO, Aloha and Carla Vernón, CEO, The Honest Company. Moderated by Yasmin Gagne, Staff Editor, Fast Company. When a company’s momentum reverses direction (or is even on the brink of bankruptcy), how does a leader pivot toward recovery and a return to success? In this panel, you’ll hear from CEOs who seized the reins of their companies when they were strugglingand managed to get things back on track.
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Featuring Logan Eggleston, Pro Athlete, LOVB Austin Volleyball; Rosie Spaulding, President, LOVB Pro and Stef Strack, Founder and CEO, Voice in Sport. Moderated by Tania Rahman, Social Media Director, Fast Company. Womens sports have finally been receiving the recognition they deserve. The goal now is to make sure this moment isn’t just a trend, and to ensure women athletes achieve the equity that remains elusive. Join this panel of executives and athletes to understand the strategy behind making women’s sports not just a cultural force but a thriving ecosystem of sustainable businesses.
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When considering Trumps new aesthetic policy on federal buildings (the famously vague Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture executive order) theres a line from The Princess Bride that immediately comes to mind. Im of course referring Inigo Montoyas iconic I do not think it means what you think it means response to Vizzinis incessant inconceivable! declarations regarding the Dread Pirate Roberts. While Trumps action has rightfully been decried by seemingly every legitimate design organization and authority in the country, I simply want to analyze the specific verbiage (and thus the actual meaning) of the order itself. Lets break it down. Regional and traditional The first paragraph of the executive order directs the General Services Administration to advance the policy that Federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces Lets focus on the regional and traditional verbiage. While these phrases are often thrown around in everyday vernacular, what do they actually mean? What regions and traditions do this policy refer to? American regions and traditions, no doubt. But which American regions or traditions? For that matter, what are American regional and traditional buildings? Surely this verbiage is not referring to grand plantations, churches, buildings of early colonial cities, or even the manufactured historicism of places like Washington, D.C.; none of those buildings are regional or traditional to these United States, or frankly anywhere in North America. Do we look instead to structures like Monticello or Mount Vernon? Unfortunately no. Sadly these, too, are just Americanized versions of European immigrant architecture. While made in America, they cannot be categorized as either regionally authentic or traditionally American. Besides these pesky technicalities, claiming any of these as our own would mean embracing a sort of stylistic birthright citizenship which Im not sure this administration is keen to do. A style of shared ethos Defining authentic American regional and traditional architecture isnt as simple as many would tend to believe. Id argue that its defined more by a shared ethos and a way of living versus anything stylistic. Were talking about living off the land, embracing hyper-local materials, an honesty of construction, and taking advantage of everything that nature provided (sightlines, elevation, solar orientation, prevailing winds, water collection, renewable resources, etc.) as it was quite simply a matter of life and death for early settlers and indigenous cultures. Ironically, following these principles would mandate that every new federal building be as low-impact and as hyper-sustainable as possible. While far from an exhaustive list, when looking for examples to draw upon were really talking about indigenous longhouses and makeshift settler cabins, cliff dwellings and mining camps, tobacco barns and slave quarters, cotton-gins and kivas, freedmans villages and ancient pyramid mounds, and everything in between. Its a mashup of cultures, methods, and experience and often more functional than pretty, but its also undeniably American. Classical terminology Now that weve broken down the beginning of the order, lets dive into the classical terminology meaning. The Oxford Dictionary describes this term specifically as Of, relating to, or characteristic of Greek or Roman antiquity. Using this and every other definition of the term classical, we can easily determine that classical architecture = Greek/Roman architecture. For the reasons mentioned previously, including classical architecture in this order is more than a little confusing and seems wholly incongruent with the American spirit of the executive order and risks undermining the current administrations stance on birthright citizenship (in regard to immigrant architecture at least). That said, since its specifically called out in the order by name, well break this down as well. A burst of color So what is Greek/Roman architecture? While America has undeniably fetishized classical architecture from the beginning, weve never managed to get it quite right when building our owneven in our very best examples (Lincoln Memorial, other D.C. monuments and buildings). While we tend to get the proportions and scale spot on, were always missing one critical aspect: these buildings were rarely (if ever) white. They were nearly (if not) always painted with a rainbow array of vibrant polychrome colors (blues, purples, reds, golds, greens, etc.), therefore giving these ancient cities a much different look than what our collective societal imagination tends to illustrate. This not as a minor point. Should we truly want to embrace classical architecture, we must also fully embrace this polychrome version. To not do so simply perpetuates the modern neo-classical style which was never mentioned in this executive order. While it might be a shock to the system the next time Im in D.C., I frankly look forward to seeing the rainbow parade of color that, according to the specific language of the executive order, should be coming soon to our nations capital. Considering this administrations enthusiasm with the wholesale cutting of costs, maybe we can have a community paint party and save a little cash? God only knows this group doesnt like to hire actual experts, so this seems like a great solution. If so just let me know where to grab my brush. The impact on others While this breakdown is certainly in the weeds, words matterespecially on legal documents impacting the lives and livelihoods of others. As silly as it sounds coming from an unabashed modernist, I look forward to this renewed focus on our truly traditional and regional designsnot the least of which being those incorporating the vernacular architecture of our First Nations peoples and those of the enslaved/formerly enslaved. I mean it seems only right considering that we stole their land and their freedom, eradicated much of their culture, and set them up generations of inequity… And here I thought this administration was calling for the disillusion of DEInow I realize what they were doing. They just wanted to call even more attention to the many many atrocities of American history by putting them on full display within our most iconic federal buildings. An order is an order after all William H. Dodge is founder and design principal at p-u-b-l-i-c and cofounder and artist at A Gang of Three. The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
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