{"id":5008,"date":"2025-11-01T21:48:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T04:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/?p=5008"},"modified":"2026-05-17T11:15:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:15:45","slug":"the-art-of-demolition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/?p=5008","title":{"rendered":"The art of demolition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"437\" src=\"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM-400x437.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5009\" srcset=\"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM-400x437.png 400w, https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM-768x839.png 768w, https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM.png 1014w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In\u00a0<em>\u201cAppetite for Destruction,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0published in\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/quillette.com\/2025\/10\/25\/appetite-for-destruction-trump-white-house-ballroom-east-wing\/\">Quillette<\/a><\/em>, I trace a through-line from the vanished Bonwit Teller reliefs to the current transformation of the White House\u2019s East Wing. Designed in 1929 in the Art Deco style, the Bonwit Teller bas-reliefs were originally promised as a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but were destroyed in 1980 during the construction of Trump Tower\u2014a moment that marked the ascendancy of branding over craftsmanship. Both that act and the recent White House remodel reveal a modern impulse to equate demolition with authorship, the rewriting of history as a declaration of power. The essay considers how architecture functions as both aesthetic expression and political gesture: what it means when the rhetoric of preservation yields to that of renovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The notorious 19th-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who proclaimed that \u201cthe urge for destruction is also a creative urge,\u201d has found an unlikely disciple in Trump. Considered together, the 1980 and 2025 episodes teach the lesson that destruction can be a form of authorship. Once the reliefs were gone, their loss defined both the building and its destroyer. The erasure became his signature. Between McFadden\u2019s 1980 account of jackhammers and Broadwater\u2019s 2025 image of roaring machinery there stretches a single, continuous story about the aesthetics of demolition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[955,1249],"tags":[956,225,1248,1244,1245,756,1247,1246],"class_list":["post-5008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-us-politics","tag-architecture","tag-art-history","tag-bonwit-teller","tag-donald-trum","tag-east-wing","tag-julia-friedman","tag-the-white-house","tag-us-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The art of demolition - Julia Friedman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/?p=5008\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The art of demolition - Julia Friedman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The notorious 19th-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who proclaimed that \u201cthe urge for destruction is also a creative urge,\u201d has found an unlikely disciple in Trump. Considered together, the 1980 and 2025 episodes teach the lesson that destruction can be a form of authorship. Once the reliefs were gone, their loss defined both the building and its destroyer. The erasure became his signature. Between McFadden\u2019s 1980 account of jackhammers and Broadwater\u2019s 2025 image of roaring machinery there stretches a single, continuous story about the aesthetics of demolition.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/?p=5008\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Julia Friedman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-02T04:48:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-17T18:15:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/juliafriedman.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1014\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1108\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jfriedman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"jfriedman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"jfriedman\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9120ffb6bd1d9684130c3eed0e059423\"},\"headline\":\"The art of demolition\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-02T04:48:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-17T18:15:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008\"},\"wordCount\":128,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/11\\\/Screen-Shot-2025-11-01-at-9.40.46-PM-400x437.png\",\"keywords\":[\"architecture\",\"Art History\",\"Bonwit Teller\",\"Donald Trum\",\"East Wing\",\"Julia Friedman\",\"The White House\",\"US politics\"],\"articleSection\":[\"architecture\",\"US Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/juliafriedman.org\\\/?p=5008\",\"name\":\"The art of demolition - 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