An executive order President Donald Trump signed on Monday that many people are likely to regard as less important than most others is one that could have the longest impact and is unambiguously welcome. Under the “Promoting Federal Civic Architecture” order, the 47th president directed the administrator of the General Services Administration to rewrite the agency’s architectural and design guidelines for federal buildings with an eye toward making them beautiful and appropriate again.
The order calls for changes to the GSA’s guiding principles for federal architecture 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.”
Well said. Our built environment is both an expression of our current culture and an influence on its trajectory. We should aim for beauty, elegance, proportion, balance, and coherence. These are proper qualities in a civilization, in its system of government, and in the aspirations it sets for itself and future generations.
If you find the brutalist architecture of the headquarters of the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services dark and depressing but are inspired by the classical aesthetic of the Supreme Court and the Treasury Department, then this order is for you.
Trump issued a similar order in December 2020, but then-President Joe Biden rescinded it in January 2021, one of his many capricious and spiteful moves inspired by nothing other than a determination to suggest everything Trump did was the opposite of what was good and desirable. This time, by issuing his order on his first day in office, Trump can make a lasting impact on how future federal buildings, such as the new FBI headquarters, will be built.
For much of our nation’s history, it was understood that federal buildings should inspire reverence and respect for the democratic values and republican virtues of the Constitution. But in 1962, that changed when President John F. Kennedy established new federal architecture guidelines, including a directive that “design must flow from the architectural profession to the government, and not vice versa.” That was always wrong. Historically, people who pay for buildings to be designed and built have told the designers and builders what they want, even though they have listened and often accepted the suggestions of those they employ in these works.
Predictably, professional architects are unhappy with Trump’s order, believing as so many misguided and entitled people do that the federal government should just keep writing the checks and zip its lip about the quality of the product it pays for. When Trump issued the first version in 2020, the American Institute of Architects responded with a statement including this self-serving pseudocultural argument: “In the 21st century, we’re very different people from the people who popularized Greek Revival architecture in the 19th century, as beautiful as it was. To try to force-fit new systems in old forms is, in of itself, difficult to do, inefficient, and is not who we are today.” That suggests “who we are as a society” is not something we can try to influence beneficially, and if a taste has developed for ugliness, as of course it has, we can do nothing better than to follow it where it leads.
Architects, like members of other segments of the opinion-forming classes, are too ready today to junk the past disrespectfully and pretend that we now know better. Classical looks are entirely possible to build today. The United States Federal Building and Courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, built in Greek Revival style, was singled out for praise by Trump’s 2020 order. It won the Palladio Award for “creative interpretation or adaptation of design principles developed through 2,500 years of the Western architectural tradition” in 2012. Contrast the Tuscaloosa building with the Orrin G. Hatch United States Courthouse in Utah, which looks like the Borg from Star Trek landed in downtown Salt Lake City. The first reflects the dignity and legitimacy of the federal government, and the second looks like it should be hosting a comics convention.
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After the Nazis burned down the House of Commons Chamber during the Blitz, some in England wanted to rebuild it in a more modern style. Prime Minister Winston Churchill disagreed, arguing that the shape of the old chamber, with its adversarial rectangular pattern, was responsible for Britain’s commitment to democracy. “We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us,” Churchill said.
He was right about our buildings shaping us. It is good to see that Trump has returned the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, and it is even better to see Churchill’s wisdom reflected in Trump’s order on federal architecture.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
