Trump Signs Order ‘Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again’

President Donald Trump on Aug. 28 signed an executive order to “[Make] Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” with a focus on using classical and traditional architecture in new federal buildings.

“Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public,” Trump wrote in the executive order.

It orders the federal government to favor classical and traditional architecture in designing, renovating, or reducing new or existing federal buildings.

In Washington, D.C., these styles would be “the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.”

Federal buildings affected by the order include courthouses, agency headquarters, all federal buildings in Washington, and all other projects that cost or are expected to cost more than $50 million in 2025. Infrastructure projects and land ports of entry are excluded.

The order defines classical architecture as “the architectural tradition derived from the forms, principles, and vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity,” and has since been expanded upon by dozens of other architects.

Trump wrote that classical and traditional architecture aligned with the American Founders’ vision for the nation’s architecture, noting that President George Washington and then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson modeled government buildings in the federal district on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome.

“The Founders ... attached great importance to Federal civic architecture,” Trump wrote in the order. “They wanted America’s public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.”

Trump said that classical and traditional architecture remained the preferred forms for federal buildings for 150 years after the nation was founded.

The action items in the order are directed at the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the design and construction of new federal buildings.

In the 1960s, brutalism—a school of architecture that made heavy use of exposed, monochrome building materials like concrete and brick—was adopted in the construction of many federal buildings.

The order defines brutalism as a style of architecture that is “characterized by a massive and block-like appearance with a rigid geometric style and large-scale use of exposed poured concrete.”

It adds that from the 1960s to 1994, the GSA oversaw buildings that “ranged from the undistinguished to designs even GSA now admits many in the public found unappealing.”

In 1994, the GSA responded to critics by launching the Design Excellence Program, which it said was intended to “provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government” through federal buildings’ architecture.

“Unfortunately, the program has not met this goal,” Trump wrote.

He accused the program of often favoring “designs by prominent architects with little regard for local input or regional aesthetic preferences.”

“Many of these new Federal buildings are not even visibly identifiable as civic buildings,” he said.

This isn’t the president’s first foray into the issue.

In December 2020, near the end of his first term, Trump signed a similar executive order to “promote beautiful federal civic architecture.” It was rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021.

In January, Trump signed a memorandum directing the administrator of the GSA to provide recommendations on making federal architecture more beautiful.

A fact sheet from the White House fits the latest order into a larger effort to “make America beautiful again.” As part of this push, the White House referenced Trump’s federalization of Washington police and use of the National Guard as part of an effort to “beautify” the U.S. capital.