As a person who is against government “waste,” I know this is completely hypocritical of me, but I agree with Trump’s executive order that requires classical styles for federal architecture.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 25, 2025
I know this is completely hypocritical of me, but I agree with Trump’s executive order that requires classical styles for federal architecture.
I was born in 1971. For my entire life, I’ve always lived within 3 blocks of Allderdice High School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I’ve always admired the architecture in the front of the building that you could see when you were standing on the sidewalk along Shady Ave.
But then in the mid 1980s – about a year before I started going to Allderdice – they built a new gym on the lawn in front of the building. And it’s the most ugly, horrific looking building that I’ve ever seen in my life.
Government buildings are supposed to look beautiful, traditional, and majestic.
To make them look like just a box (like that gym) is an insult to all of humanity.
Yes, this is hypocritical of me, and contradicts all of my previous claims about how I was against “wasting” the taxpayer’s money, but that’s how I feel, and I’m self aware enough to admit my own hypocrisy.
Trump signs new executive order mandating Classical styles for federal architecture
By Josh Niland
Jan 21, 2025
One of the two dozen or so new Trump Administration’s executive orders issued since assuming office includes a mandate for the restoration of an amalgam of classicism-inspired “traditional” architectural styles in all new federal government buildings.
The newly signed Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture order directs the General Services Administration (GSA) to submit recommendations within 60 days that “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.”
The President, via the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, would then also have to be notified within 30 days of the GSA’s approval of any new building design that deviates from the newly revised Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture. A consideration for the inclusion of community feedback in the design selection process is mentioned as well.
This brazen and fairly dilettante-like action follows a similar but later repealed February 2020 order declaring public buildings to be “the ornament of a country” and demanding that the restitution of buildings whose designs evoke the “vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity” over those such as Brutalism and Deconstructivism, which were labeled a subversion of traditional values.
Trump has repeatedly promoted the notion that Classical architectural styles are emblematic of the grandeur and glory of the United States, something that scholars have pointed to as being historically problematic due to its associations with slavery. The American Institute of Architects had spoken out against the push emphatically during his first turn in office. Still, other groups—including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Society of Architectural Historians, Docomomo US, the ASLA, and NOMA—have labeled it as an attempt to “censor” modern architecture.
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