US architects disillusioned by the AIA's post-election sentiment should use critical speculation to help reimagine the country's built environment and remain hopeful, suggests Mimi Zeiger in this Opinion column.

It's hard to believe that it was only last month that Robert Ivy, executive vice president and CEO of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), pledged the national organisation and its membership to working with president-elect Donald Trump.
Issued just days after the election, the tone-deaf timing of the obsequious memo provoked reactions from The Architecture Lobby, critic Michael Sorkin and Equity in Architecture (among others), who rejected the AIA's stance as politically representative of professional architects.
While the shock of the presumptuous allegiance of a self-proclaimed "bi-partisan organisation with strong values" to a xenophobic, racist, misogynist, and anti-semitic administration still smarts, it's pretty much old news. Weeks ago, Ivy and AIA president Russ Davidson walked back their position in a weak-kneed online video and statement to The Architect's Newspaper, and in late November, AIA media relations director Scott Frank resigned. But what is most relevant is what it represents as architects attempt to envision a future under the current political climate.
The AIA statement is a knee-jerk position that reflects a professional organisation desperately in need of self-preservation. How else to justify the quick grab for a piece of ...