Hello everyone!
We hope you all are faring well this time of year. We’re writing to you all to reflect on the current political moment and also announce a new Lobby Campaign we’re kicking off and hoping to recruit more architectural workers to shape and contribute to.
In terms of recent news, we applaud the AIA’s recent public statement on our present political moment, as published here, but we find ourselves confused by their narrow focus on the Trump administration's executive order setting federal design preferences and the proposed White House Expansion. Frankly, both actions cater to the alliance of reactionary cultural dilettantes and real estate speculators that are key components of the Trump coalition. This executive order seems unlikely to succeed just as it did during the last Trump term, when you consider how they had to scrape to find a small firm that fits their ideological framework and has capacity to produce a project at a scale even close to that of the White House.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s tariff policies have created tremendous supply chain uncertainty, and their cuts to federal funding to countless urban, architectural, and infrastructural projects have proved to be significantly disruptive to architectural workers across the country who proudly make a living working on these projects. As the AIA concerns itself with the aesthetics of the administration’s media, we are disappointed by the silence surrounding these immediate issues and rapid changes that impact its membership…
We require further research into our current government’s actions and their impact on our profession. What projects are being put on hold or canceled, and how are architecture firms faring at this moment? Aside from the moral argument— that the Trump administration blatantly antagonizes our professional code of ethics towards public good— there’s also an argument that these efforts are diminishing the economic prospects and professional relevance of architects in this country. To the AIA, if you are not our advocate, then what is your role?
The Architecture Lobby is working on how we can impact the current political moment. In the last newsletter, we introduced the new members of our Administrative, Strategy, and Finance committees and how we’d come to a consensus to adjust how TAL has historically framed its organizing. One of those things included a focus on campaigns that we hope will throw urgent weight behind relevant issues and pressure points as they’re happening, and work towards concrete and material outcomes.
During the August Organizing Committee meeting we built consensus around the first of those campaigns:
Anti-Carceral Campaign
Overhearing management and marketing plan their response to the next RFP. Sounds like we’re going after another public safety training facility…
Overhearing the boss on the phone with someone that manages the on-call contract with the state. Something about designing a small sallyport for ICE at the nearby ‘justice’ center…
Overhearing a Principal ask the summer intern to add some more scale figures and vegetation into the ‘healing garden’ diagram for this year's AIA Justice Facilities Review awards submission…
Many architectural workers are perpetually confronted with scenarios like these. Moments when the realities of “Justice”, “Civic”, and “Public Safety” architecture are plainly obvious in their complicity with the maintenance or expansion of the prison industry and state violence. Maybe in the back of our heads we really hope that the biophilic neuro-science schtick our boss keeps trotting out really is at least marginally better, but it’s actually not convincing!
Members of TAL are in the early stages of organizing a campaign mobilizing architectural workers against the expansion of the prison industrial complex, ICE, and carceral architecture more broadly. We want to build worker capacity to refuse carceral projects, pressure firms to reject commissions, pressure professional organizations against rewarding carceral work, and support other organizations and firms challenging what constitutes just, civic, and safe buildings, spaces, parks, and cities. There are many strategies and goals such a campaign could take. However, for it to take shape, we need more organizers expressing and helping to build the resources we all need. We know there is no shortage of architectural workers against carceral architecture, so if you’re interested in contributing or have specific ideas on what direction you think we should pursue , join our Discord server using this link and find us under the ‘Discussions’ channel.
Beyond campaigns, there is a significant amount of ‘back-end’ work that is moving forward:
The OC voted to fund the transition/migration of our back-end membership system from Paypal to Stripe. This will allow members a more integrated membership portal through which they can better understand their membership status as well as updating the website ‘JOIN’ button on the website.
TAL was accepted as a participant to the UC Berkeley Skills to Win training. Members are organizing to build a cohort of at least 20 people to attend. The cost will be $75 per person. The training will happen over six Thursday evenings on October 9, 16, 23, 30, November 6, and 13, from 5pm-7pm Pacific / 8pm – 10pm Eastern. If you are interested please email us at info@architecture-lobby.org
The Organizing Committee has accepted an invite for TAL to be a speaker at the 2026 International Union of Architects World Congress in Barcelona! Keep your eyes open for meetings to discuss next steps.
LINKS:
TAL Toronto has two surveys they’re collecting right now:
All FAECT Bulletin’s are available online at this link
TAL member Martin Weiner convenes an informal writing group for aspiring architect-writers. Contact Martin at: martingweiner@gmail.com
At least one TAL member is currently reading: Skyscraper Jails by Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti and you should too!
We’re wondering why the AIA would sell a majority stake of AIA contracts to a private equity firm…
Join our Discord server!
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