Architecture: More Earth-Shattering News that the MSM Won’t Tell You or How Donald J. Trump Wants to Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again

We thought we would update readers on a breaking news story: In his final days in office President Trump signed a draft executive order that calls for, as he puts it, ‘Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.’ The actual title is “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.”

Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia estate Monticello in summer. Jefferson designed and built Monticello. It is a fine example of early Classical Revival style. Credit: Shutterstock – IS 1587209701

Unless one is an architecture buff, most people are probably not aware of the Brutalism style of architecture which Trump has been decrying and has hoped to replace with the Jeffersonian classical and neoclassical styles.

Brutalism arrived in the 1960s. It relies heavily on the use of concrete because it was considered durable and economical and conceptually it represented the stability of America. Buildings exemplifying brutalism include the Hubert H. Humphrey Department of Health and Human Services Office building (pictured here), the Frances Perkins Department of Labor Building, and Robert C. Weaver Department of Housing and Urban Development Building to name a few.

A prime example of brutalist architecture. The Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Washington, D.C. (below).

In 1962, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (long-time Democrat U.S. Senator from New York) wrote a paper calling for guiding principles for design excellence in federal architecture which is still in use. Trump wants to reshape this policy to include traditional and classical styles of American architecture.

In his paper, Moynihan proposed that federal spaces should be modernized to accommodate the use of newly emerging building materials and the technologies of the day. Moynihan went along with this prevailing design mode and it became the default architectural style for many buildings around D.C. There are so many buildings that fit this style that visitors to D.C. can take a tour of brutalist buildings should they so desire. Sixty years later, Donald J. Trump, a builder by trade, decided it was time to rethink Moynihan’s then-modernist approach to federal spaces.

In his draft executive order from February 2019, Trump referred to these federal office spaces as “aesthetic failures.” His latest order establishes that the preferred style for new federal buildings in the classical architectural style but it did not ban other styles for federal spaces from being built as the first order had proposed.

Even though brutalist architecture had fallen out of favor with today’s architects only to be replaced in many instances by deconstructionist architecture, the architectural elite still banded together when the draft order was first circulated to protest Trump’s desire to return to the classical American architecture. In a letter signed by architects who belonged to various architectural trade associations they intimated that the president’s idea ‘is a decree that harks back to the days of Hitler in Germany.’

Trump emphasizes that “the federal government has largely stopped building beautiful buildings. In Washington, D.C. federal architecture has become a discordant mixture of classical and modernist designs.”

Newer buildings which are not necessarily of the brutalist style of the 1960s but nevertheless Trump feels have ‘little aesthetic appeal…and have not reintegrated our national values into Federal buildings’ are the U.S. Courthouse in Austin, Texas; the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami, Florida; and the San Francisco Federal Building. All are examples of ugly architecture according to Donald Trump.

The Austin U.S. Federal Courthouse. It replaced an Art Deco style New Deal court house. Credit: Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects (top) and (bottom) Once considered a monstrosity, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in D.C. was patterned after French Second Empire architecture. Credit: Shutterstock 499897750

Understandably, this order did not garner much media attention because it comes in the last days of his administration which is consumed by a post-election legal battle.

The National Review weighed in when the draft order was issued and sided with Trump saying, ‘Ignore the critics: President Trump’s federal architecture executive order is a great step toward restoring beauty in government buildings.’

Today, as The New York Times reported, “The new rule was supported by the National Civic Art Society, a nonprofit group.” The group’s head Justin Shubow said of the order, “President Trump is to be applauded for inaugurating a literally beautiful new era in federal architecture. Overturning the modernist hegemony that has given us dismal government buildings for over sixty [sic] years, the order gives the American people what they want in federal design.”

The U.S. Capitol building at night. It was built in the neoclassical style inspired by ancient Greece and Roman civic architecture. Credit: Shutterstock – ID 50998105

Of course the new order which was not as far-reaching as the first was met with the same stinging criticism and attempts to smear. Reinhold Martin, an architecture professor at Columbia said to the Times, “This is an effort to use culture to send coded messages about white supremacy and political hegemony.”

We covered the news of the draft order in The Elegant Trump at some length (Chapter 9-The Trump Brand, page 134) and we are pleased to see that Trump fortified his draft as a formal executive order.

We are grossly understating a known fact that the president does not receive the acclaim he has deserved when it comes to his firm and express desire of wanting to make America beautiful. To our detriment, the media glossed over the former president’s sweeping policy changes as with the China trade agreement and the recent string of Middle East peace deals as well as in these orders of seemingly less import.

FURTHER READING:

Dave Boyer, The Washington Times, “Trump signs executive order to stop building ‘brutalist’ government buildings” (December 21, 2020)https://bit.ly/3kV8Gqo

Dana Marks, National Capital Planning Commission, “Why are there so many brutalist federal buildings in Washington?” (July 25, 2018)
https://www.ncpc.gov/news/item/52/

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture. Report to the President by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space ( June 1, 1962)
https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/design-construction/design-excellence/design-excellence-program/guiding-principles-for-federal-architecture

James Rabin, Towers, “The Trump Administration Thinks This Austin Courthouse Is Really Ugly (February 2020)
https://austin.towers.net/the-trump-administration-thinks-this-austin-courthouse-is-really-really-ugly/