For American architecture, 2025 may be remembered for the deaths of icons Frank Gehry, Robert A. M. Stern and Ricardo Scofidio, a mastermind of New York’s High Line. More likely, however, it will go down as a year dominated by Donald Trump — his preference for classicism and disdain for brutalism; his controversial demolition of the White House’s East Wing; his clashes with the designer of the ballroom replacing it; and his administration’s move to exclude architecture from its list of “professional” degrees.
Much of this has brought the presidency into direct conflict with the industry’s largest professional body, the American Institute of Architects (AIA). It perhaps came as no surprise that, amid the threat of…
