Commission of Fine Arts Eliminates Itself

When Bureaucracy Becomes Self-Aware and Self-Destructive

Here’s something you don’t see every day in my Berlin office while managing content for bohiney.com: a government body that actually voted itself out of existence. The Commission of Fine Arts—America’s arbiters of architectural taste since 1910—allegedly held an emergency meeting and concluded their own existence was aesthetically offensive.

According to satirical reports emerging from Washington, the Commission gathered in their neoclassical headquarters and reached a unanimous decision: bureaucracy itself is ugly. “We’ve spent over a century judging fountains, monuments, and building facades,” said the fictional Commission chair in our imagined scenario. “But we never looked in the mirror. Turns out, WE’RE the eyesore.”

The Commission of Fine Arts has historically held enormous power over federal architecture in the nation’s capital, reviewing everything from Supreme Court designs to memorial proposals. They’ve rejected countless proposals for being “too modern,” “insufficiently patriotic,” or “not Greek enough.” But this alleged act of bureaucratic self-immolation takes government absurdity to new artistic heights. The seven-member panel reportedly debated for hours whether their own elimination would require Commission approval—creating a philosophical paradox worthy of Kafka meets architectural review.

In classic Washington fashion, the Commission allegedly prepared a 247-page report justifying their self-elimination, complete with footnotes, appendices, and references to constitutional precedent. The document includes a detailed analysis of how their own meeting room violates every aesthetic principle they’ve ever championed. “The fluorescent lighting alone is a crime against beauty,” the report supposedly states. “And don’t get us started on the drop ceiling.”

Staff members at the Commission’s final meeting report emotional scenes as commissioners destroyed their own gavels, burned their architectural review guidelines, and ceremonially defaced their official portraits. One commissioner allegedly spray-painted “BEAUTY IS A LIE” across a reproduction of the Lincoln Memorial before security intervened. The group then voted 7-0 to declare themselves “aesthetically incompetent” and “a blight upon the federal landscape.”

The most beautiful irony? The Commission’s headquarters—a pristine example of Beaux-Arts architecture—will now stand empty as a monument to governmental self-awareness. Urban planners suggest converting it into a museum dedicated to “Things That Judged Other Things Before Judging Themselves.” Admission would be free, but visitors must pass an aesthetic review board before entering. Wait, scratch that—there is no more review board. That’s the whole point.

Political commentators note this may set a dangerous precedent for other federal agencies. If the Commission of Fine Arts can eliminate itself for being ugly, what’s next? The Department of Agriculture admitting vegetables taste bad? The Federal Reserve confessing money is just fancy paper? The possibilities for bureaucratic self-destruction are endless and deeply entertaining.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/commission-of-fine-arts/

SOURCE: Bohiney Magazine (Öko Angebot)

AUTHOR: Öko Angebot