A new executive order may enforce classical design standards—i.e. lots of columns—for federal buildings.
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This space is dedicated to design’s relationship to business, but this week’s strangest design story involves government and politics.
According to Architectural Record, President Trump is considering an executive order to rewrite the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, mandating that “the classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style” for all major federal buildings.
A draft of the order, obtained by the Record, extolls the architectural styles employed in “democratic Athens” and “republican Rome,” and cites the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Lincoln Memorial as “beautiful” examples of architecture. It deplores modernist approaches like Brutalism and Deconstructionism, and refers to the modern buildings housing the departments of Labor, Health, and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development as “undistinguished,” “uninspiring,” and “just plain ugly.”
The proposed “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” order calls for enforcing classical design standards for federal buildings in and around D.C., as well as any federal courthouses and public buildings with construction costs over $50 million. The presidential commission it envisions would be granted sweeping powers that appear to challenge those of the Commission on Fine Arts, the independent federal agency that currently oversees the design of the nation’s capital. A second provision bars artists, architects, designers, engineers, and art critics from participating in public hearings about federal design projects.
In response, the American Institute of Architects says it “strongly opposes uniform style mandates for federal architecture.” Washington Post architecture critic Philip Kennicott called the proposal “the architectural equivalent of making every federal contractor use a hammer and nails exclusively; no other tools allowed.” An editorial in The New York Times asks, “What’s So Great About Fake Roman Temples?”
Technically, the order defines the classical style more broadly than columns. A footnote in the seven-page document approves of Renaissance architects Michelangelo and Palladio, as well as some Enlightenment-era and 19th-century architects. In what reads like an overture to the proprietor of Mar-a-Lago, the order also expresses tolerance for Gothic, Romanesque, Spanish colonial, and “other Mediterranean styles generally found in Florida and the American Southwest.”
The proposal asserts that America’s founders, some of whom were amateur architects themselves, consciously chose the styles of ancient Athens and Rome to reflect new nation’s democratic ideals. Traditional styles fell out of fashion in the 1950s. The order faults the Guiding Principles, drafted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan during the Kennedy administration, for opening the gates to modernism by eschewing an official federal style in favor of design that flows “from the architectural profession to the government, and not vice versa.”
So far the White House hasn’t commented on the proposal. Trump hasn’t demonstrated much appreciation for classical ideals in his own properties. On the other hand, he’s been famously critical of the Brutalist-influenced Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters. And it’s not hard to imagine how he’ll feel about a proposal that presupposes the president knows more about architecture and design than architects and designers.
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Clay Chandler
@ClayChandler
Clay.Chandler@Fortune.com
