Design and the Federal Government

by Neil Kleinman, from Print, July/August 1973:

“Some events attract us because they promise so much of what we want, while making it all seem relatively easy to get. We would like to live in buildings that do not breed slums we would like to live in cities that have parks, promenades, and quiet open spaces; we would like to read forms, applications and booklets regulations and be able to make sense of them. We would like to drive down roads and know where we are, where we are going, and where to turn off. Such needs seem reasonable.

To most of us, it has been clear that the general performance of the government in these areas of design, architecture and planning has been unsatisfactory. Each of us can think of his own favorite monstrosity. Some of the things designed by the federal government, like the income tax forms or the brochures explaining Social Security benefits, simply baffle us. Some of them, like the Sam Rayburn building, are so ugly that they have achieved an almost mythic universality virtually becoming archetypes for what ugly is.

The First Federal Design Assembly held in Washington last April 2nd and 3rd [1973] was an attempt to set some of these federal sins aright... The purpose of the Assembly was to begin the process of showing federal administrators that ‘good design is good government’ — a rather pleasant truism if a bit unsettling in these times of political PR and managed news.”

Continued...