The US President to ensure the classical architectural style be the ‘preferred and default style’ for the new buildings.
In a seven-page draft executive order, Trump declared that he plans to make federal buildings beautiful again. According to Trump, the federal government has “largely stopped building beautiful buildings that American people want to look at or work in” since the 1950s. The US president plans to make the federal buildings “beautiful again” by mandating a return to “the classical architectural style.”
He further said that future federal government buildings should look like those of ancient Rome, Greece and Europe.
Trump’s draft order was titled: “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” According to the order, the White House would require a rewrite of the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, issued in 1962, “to ensure that ‘the classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style’ for the new and upgraded federal buildings”.
In his draft order, the president further praised the designs of certain structures, such as the U.S. Capitol Building, the White House and the Supreme Court Building, which most Americans prize, as “international symbols of democratic self-government.” The US president further said in the order that he preferred Gothic, Romanesque, Spanish Colonial and other Mediterranean styles, generally found in Florida and the American Southwest.
Buildings designed under Trump’s mandate would “convey the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of America’s system of self-government.” The new guidelines would apply as well to the remodeling of modern or contemporary federal buildings.
