Trump Wants All New Federal Buildings to Be Neoclassical…Again
President Donald Trump is cleaning house when it comes to federal employees—and now he’s cleaning the buildings.
Just hours after his presidential inauguration in Washington D.C. Monday, Trump returned to the White House for a second non-consecutive term, and signed a raft of orders, memoranda and rescissions. Charges ranged from the withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement (again) to transforming a federal government he views as both too bloated and too “woke.” Among them, modern architecture is also under fire.
The order, Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, promotes neoclassical architecture as the official style for federal buildings across America and in Washington, D.C. The policy directs new acting head of the General Services Administration (GSA) Stephen Ehikian to submit, within 60 days, “recommendations to advance the policy that federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.”
A similar policy was put forward near the end of Trump’s first term in 2020. It, too, stipulated that federal buildings should be “beautiful,” with priority given to classical and traditional styles that are “visual embodiment[s] of America’s ideals.” The order specified that it was a push away from the often divisive Brutalist architecture that was common for federal buildings built between the 1950s and 1970s. President Joe Biden revoked the order in February 2021 before any significant changes were enacted to existing buildings.
The language in this new memorandum is softer than the language in Trump’s 2020 executive order, but it doesn’t allow the General Services Administration from approving any new buildings, and provides time for the president to nominate a new administrator of the GSA.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) denounced the policy, saying it would “stifle innovation.” In a press release, the organization wrote, “AIA is extremely concerned about any revisions that remove control from local communities; mandate official federal design preferences, or otherwise hinder design freedom; and add bureaucratic hurdles for federal buildings.”
The group adds that it will continue to monitor the process laid out in the memo “and provide feedback from AIA’s over 100,000 members comprising licensed, practicing architects who live and work in every community across the country.”
Will all new federal buildings look like ancient Rome now? If fully implemented, this policy could jeopardize the design quality of billions of dollars’ worth of construction projects. However, this wasn’t the case with the first memorandum, but it remains to be seen if more persistent action will be taken.
The GSA currently owns or leases 8,629 properties across the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa. One building that might be directly impacted by the memorandum is the J. Edgar Hoover Building that is the headquarters of the FBI. The low-rise brutalist office building, located in Washington D.C., has long been in need of repair. Last year, after a years-long site selection process, the Biden administration selected Greenbelt, Maryland as the location for the new FBI headquarters.
In response, Trump posted on Truth Social, “THE NEW FBI BUILDING SHOULD BE BUILT IN WASHINGTON, D.C., NOT MARYLAND, AND BE THE CENTERPIECE OF MY PLAN TO TOTALLY RENOVATE AND REBUILD OUR CAPITAL CITY INTO THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND SAFEST ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.”
So will a neoclassical FBI building soon be landing on Pennsylvania Avenue? Only time will tell.
Rachel Silva is the associate digital editor at ELLE DECOR, where she covers all things design, architecture, and lifestyle. She also oversees the publication’s feature article coverage, and is, at any moment, knee-deep in an investigation on everything from the to the on the internet right now. She has more than 16 years of experience in editorial, working as a photo assignment editor at Time and acting as the president of Women in Media in NYC. She went to Columbia Journalism School, and her work has been nominated for awards from ASME, the Society of Publication Designers, and World Press Photo.
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