President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day back in office directing the heads of government departments to provide recommendations on how to advance the cause of an architectural renaissance in America that would see the federal government prioritize beauty over the anti-traditionalist hang-ups and egos of radicals.

Toward the end of his first term, Trump issued an executive order mandating that new federal buildings should not only be designed to serve the American people but should be designed to "uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public, and, as appropriate, respect the architectural heritage of a region."

Former President Joe Biden evidently did not feel as strongly about the aesthetic blight of modernist architecture. Rather than ditch the concrete-heavy and block-like Brutalist style first popularized in apparently beauty-averse socialist nations then applied in the design of various federal buildings, including the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the similarly prison-like Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., he rescinded Trump's order.

Biden's revocation only survived his presidency by a few hours.

On Monday, Trump directed the administrator of the General Services Administration — whom he has yet to name and whose responsibilities are currently being shouldered by Stephen Ehikian — to consult with the assistant to the president for domestic policy and the heads of federal agencies and departments and submit by March 21 recommendations to advance his beautification policy.

'They sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity.'

Trump, who previously declared that the "Golden Age of America is upon us," noted further in his memo that recommendations "shall consider appropriate revisions to the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture and procedures for incorporating community input into Federal building design selections."

In his 2020 beautification order, Trump suggested that since America's founding, leaders worth remembering have sought to erect buildings that inspire, encourage civic virtue, and draw visible connections with the past.

"President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington, D.C., on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome," wrote the president. "They sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity, reminding citizens not only of their rights but also their responsibilities in maintaining and perpetuating its institutions."

Whereas the Founding Fathers and subsequent generations of beauty-attuned leaders recognized the enduring value and civic role of classical buildings, Trump noted that in the 1950s, the federal government — apparently overcome with the zeitgeist — began "replacing traditional designs for new construction with modernist ones. This practice became official policy after the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space proposed what became known as the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture (Guiding Principles) in 1962," which formally rejected official classicalism in favor of modernism.

In the years that followed, cities across the country were visually punished with some of the nation's "ugliest structures," in some cases intended not for the American people but merely for "architects to appreciate."

The guiding principles listed on the General Services Administration site at the time of publication still carried the leftist presumption that newer was necessarily better and stated that "major emphasis should be placed on the choice of designs that embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought."

The guiding principles also suggested that the design of federal buildings must "flow" from the architects of the day rather than the American people's government.

Months before Biden rescinded Trump's order, a Harris Insights and Analytics poll conducted on behalf of the National Civic Art Society found that 72% of Americans preferred traditional architecture for federal buildings. There was vast consensus across political lines and age groups.

The poll found that 70% of Democrats, 73% of Republicans, and 73% of independents supported traditional architecture. Of those individuals aged 18-34 who were surveyed, 68% indicated a preference for traditional architecture, just a few points down from Baby Boomers, 77% of whom preferred the old ways.

Attempting to make good on Trump's initiative by alternate means, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a similar proposal in the Senate while Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) did likewise in the House in 2023, rehashing commentary from the president's executive order and calling for the establishment of a presidential council on improving federal civic architecture. The bill does not appear to have gotten any traction.

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