The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has criticised president Donald Trump for issuing an executive order titled Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture. The order, issued yesterday among a slew of other headline-grabbing directives, mandates that more classical styles of architecture such as Neoclassicism be applied to public buildings, while rejecting Modernist ideas.
Specifically, the order states 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”. It goes on to explain that heads of US government departments must submit recommendations to advance this policy within 60 days.
The AIA, however, says it has strong concerns that mandating architectural styles in this way stifles innovation and harms local communities. “[We are] extremely concerned about any revisions that remove control from local communities; mandate official federal design preferences, or otherwise hinder design freedom; and add bureaucratic hurdles for federal buildings,” the institute said in a statement.
The order goes on to stipulate that recommendations to the new administration must “consider appropriate revisions to the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture”. According to the US government website, these guiding principles, created in 1962, shape federal government’s vision for architecture, ensuring that “public buildings represent the interests and aspirations of the American people”.
The latest action on architecture follows a previous order, also called Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, which was issued by Trump in December 2020, during his first term as US president. This previous order, welcomed by traditionalists, states that “the Guiding Principles implicitly discouraged classical and other traditional designs known for their beauty, declaring instead that the government should use ‘contemporary’ designs.” It continues by stating that classical and other traditional architecture “should be encouraged instead of discouraged”.
Reinhold Martin, an architecture professor at Columbia University, told The New York Times in 2020: “The executive order is meaningless. This is an effort to use culture to send coded messages about white supremacy and political hegemony.” The 2020 executive order was repealed by president Joe Biden early in his term in February 2021.