President Donald Trump has signed an executive order making “classical and traditional architecture” the default for federal buildings. The order closely resembles one that Trump signed in December 2020, but that Joe Biden rescinded early in his presidency.
Trump’s August 28 order highlights the importance that the Founding Fathers placed on architecture, and explains how the federal government abandoned classical architecture for modernist styles:
In the 1960s, the Federal Government largely replaced traditional designs for new construction with modernist and brutalist ones. The Federal architecture that ensued, overseen by the General Services Administration (GSA), was often unpopular with Americans. The new buildings ranged from the undistinguished to designs even GSA now admits many in the public found unappealing.
In 1994, GSA responded to this widespread criticism by establishing the Design Excellence Program. The GSA intended that program to “provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government.” Unfortunately, the program has not met this goal. Under the Design Excellence Program, GSA has often selected designs by prominent architects with little regard for local input or regional aesthetic preferences. The resulting Federal architecture sometimes impresses the architectural elite, but not the American people who the buildings are meant to serve. Many of these new Federal buildings are not even visibly identifiable as civic buildings.
Trump’s executive order is a symbolic yet significant action. In its report on his 2020 order, The New American explained:
While President Trump’s order might appear minor or trivial, in reality, it is a significant and long-overdue action. One’s choice of architecture reflects one’s character, culture, and values. This is as true for countries — including the United States — as it is for individuals.
The Founding Fathers designed the U.S. as a federal republic, based on the rule of law rather than the shifting whims of the popular majority, and took inspiration from the Ancient Greeks and Romans. As already mentioned, the Founders and their contemporaries also applied this to the country’s architecture, and such a strong association existed that the Roman-inspired architecture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries became known as “Federal style.”
On the other hand, globalists and Marxists, in their quest for a one-world government separated from traditional culture and Judeo-Christian values, have worked to sever Americans from their national heritage. They have used various methods to accomplish this, including enabling cultural Marxist indoctrination in the public education system and by reshaping the country through mass migration. Promoting architectural styles completely disconnected from culture and history is another, very subtle, method.
This explains why, among its other actions, the Soviet Union promoted modernist architectural styles such as Constructivism, which sought “to create an environment that would inculcate new social values.” The Soviet communists, like other Marxists, understood that the submersion of society in such architectural styles helps detach individuals from their history, heritage, culture, and nationality.
In the past four years, President Trump has worked to promote Americanism in multiple areas, including education, promoting American history, and, now, architecture. His push in the latter area is also popular, with 72 percent of Americans supporting the use of traditional architecture for federal buildings over modernist styles, according to a Harris Poll in October [2020].
Although it is important for federal buildings to epitomize a republican form of government, it is even more important for the federal government to uphold the U.S. Constitution in its actions. Contact your U.S. representative and senators, and urge them to uphold the Constitution with their votes.