AIA Issues Apology Regarding Statement Supporting Infrastructure Initiative

WASHINGTON — On Nov. 10 a statement was released by Robert Ivy, the CEO of the American Institute of Architects in support of president-elect Donald Trump’s infrastructure initiative. The statement has since been removed from the AIA’s website after controversy erupted among the group’s 89,000 members.

The introductory paragraph of the statement read, “The AIA and its 89,000 members are committed to working with president-elect Trump to address the issues our country faces, particularly strengthening the nation’s aging infrastructure. During the campaign, president-elect Trump called for committing at least $500 billion to infrastructure spending over five years. We stand ready to work with him and with the incoming 115th Congress to ensure that investments in schools, hospitals and other public infrastructure continue to be a major priority.”

In response to the memo, members of the AIA took to social media with the #notmyAIA hashtag. Architect’s Newspaper published an editorial to counter AIA’s press release and Frizt Read, an architect from AIA’s Baltimore chapter resigned from the organization to protest the statement.

Despite the controversy surrounding the statement, the president-elect will have a major impact on the green building industry. In his first 100 days in office, Trump plans to introduce legislation that will create $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next 10 years. According to a statement, Trump said that the bill would be revenue-neutral and would work to maximize public-private partnerships as well as private investments through tax incentives. He also promised to get the bill passed during his first 100 days in office.

“We are going to fix our inner cities, and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools and hospitals,” Trump said in his acceptance speech on Nov. 9. “We are going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none and we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

On Nov. 15 Ivy and AIA National President Russ Davidson issued an official video apology. Ivy said that his memo was “tone deaf” and the language he used did not take into the account the emotions AIA members were feeling after election night.

The original statement from Nov. 10 has since been removed from the AIA’s website.