Carol Ross Barney designed the Oklahoma City Federal Building to “let the materials” create a “strong and beautiful presence.” Indeed, it’s an agile structure that even at just three stories soars and opens in a graceful way to the surrounding green spaces that honor the 168 people who perished in the 1995 bombing at the site. While many were concerned that the new federal building would be a bunkered fortress in the aftermath of the truck bombing, Ross Barney’s sleek modernist structure, completed in 2005, is both substantial and welcoming, with a curving courtyard that sweeps inward.

If it were built today under a possible Trump Administration mandate, Ross Barney’s design might never have been fashioned in this compelling style. Neither would the National African American Museum of History and Culture, opened four years ago, which the architectural team of David Adjaye and the late Philip Freelon and J. Max Bond designed to synthesize African roots with elements of the African Diaspora, particularly the Americas and the American South. Nor would the 1933 Federal Office Building in Seattle have been constructed in its exuberant Art Deco style with its geometric motifs and ziggurat top.

Each wouldn’t have been acceptable because the Trump Administration is looking to dictate that for the design of all new federal buildings, “the classical architectural style be the preferred and default style.” In basic terms, it would mandate the classical or only certain traditional styles such as Romanesque for all new federal courthouses, federal agencies, buildings in the National Capital region, and all federal buildings expected to cost more than $50 million.

This revelation came after the Chicago Sun-Times last month obtained and published the copy of a Trump Administration draft executive order, which is a seven-page document entitled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” The draft order says that the Founding Fathers embraced the classical models of “democratic Athens” and “republican Rome,” and it hearkened to the “self-governing ideals” of those societies.

The Oklahoma City Federal Building

How would the order do this? The Trump edict particularly takes aim at the General Services Administration’s Design Excellence program. It argues that resulting designs have been works of, or influenced by modernist styles that the Administration contends don’t reflect “national values” and elicit the respect that classical-style buildings would.

The coronavirus crisis is dominating the White House and governments at all levels right now – as well it should. Thus, this Trump draft order may well have put on a back burner – and that is where it should stay, if not be outright torn up. One must hope it never becomes a reality, which would happen if the President executes it.

A Complete Departure

The disclosure of this draft, understandably, has sparked much criticism and concern from architects, architectural groups and publications, other design professionals, teachers in architectural schools, and architecture critics. They oppose it for a variety of reasons. It would stifle design expression and usher in a government-decreed single, one-size-fits-all architecture style for federal buildings. The order also reflects an authoritarian impulse. Moreover, it mirrors the Trump Administration’s frequent disregard for highly trained professionals, such as scientists, environmental and health care experts, legal authorities, and judges.

No administration has seen fit to dictate a certain style. If the President executes this order, it will upend guiding federal architecture principles in effect for nearly 60 years – ones the federal government first put forth in 1962, under the John F. Kennedy Administration. At that time, as a young General Services Administration staffer (and later Senator), Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a report for the President on how the government should further the interests of the American people in its public buildings. The principles stated that buildings should “embody the finest contemporary American thought.”

Most importantly, under the Guiding Principles, there should be no national style. “An official style must be avoided,” the guidance said. As new buildings would reflect their time, “Design must flow from the architectural profession to the government and not vice versa,” according to the guidelines.

This would all be disregarded under the Trump order. The biggest clue of its essence is in the draft’s title: “Making Federal Building Beautiful Again.” Beautiful would be decreed by the federal government, meaning that its buildings should be in the classical style, as in those of ancient Greece or Rome, or in America, the Capitol Building, the White House, and Supreme Court. Traditional styles such as Romanesque and Spanish Colonial could also be considered.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture
Photo Credit: Frank Schulenburg – CC BY-SA 4.0

“Beautiful Again,” like that other Trump mantra, “Great Again,” intimates a going backward in defining what is attractive and what will “command admiration” and “respect.” It hearkens to the 19th century. In the early days of the Republic during the early 19th century, the United States government wanted to convey the solidity of an empire, pointing to Greece and Rome. As the century progressed and America’s world presence grew, the federal government relied on the designs of the temples of European civilization, with porticos and columns, to symbolize greatness and power.

MAGA Design

Yet in defining that classical-style buildings are what constitutes beauty, the Trump dictate erases the diversity, creativity, evolution, and ingenuity of American and global culture of the past century-and-a-half. By this design approach, a great United States, like the MAGA ethic, is a white male place of traditional power, and would say so in using a strict adherence to classical architecture. As the Chicago Sun-Times editorial observed, “[Trump] would demand that the buildings be designed in architectural styles of centuries past, extending his reactionary instincts to the very brick and mortar of government.” In its statement expressing strong opposition to Trump’s draft order, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) said, ”Our society should celebrate the differences that develop across both space and time.”

Even while stating that new federal buildings of classical and traditional styles inspire “respect for our system of self-government,” as the order claims, it would do the opposite. It would stifle freedom of design and artistic expression and decision-making. It is, all in all, anti-democratic, and is a dangerous precedent that mirrors the inclinations of dictators in the past century. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Francisco Franco each pushed for a singular classical-influenced, monumental architecture that elevated the state over the freedom of individual communities and artistic expression.

Charles Rosenblum, an architecture critic, journalist, and scholar, was among those who cited this disturbing lesson from history. In a column in the Pittsburgh City Paper, he wrote, “…the `classical: good; modern: bad’ correlation is an old fascist canard that would seem simply dumb were it not so chillingly evil. Sorry, but the guy who rounded up modern art to be stigmatized as `degenerate’ was indeed Hitler.” As Rosenblum concluded, government “must not silence expertise or wield any kind of architecture with authoritarian tactics. It’s not the style. It’s the fascism.”

The former U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Fairbanks, Alaska

This action would negate the significant role and expertise of architects in the construction and remodeling of federal buildings. We have witnessed this systematic diminishment of those with professional expertise by the Trump Administration, from disbanding the global health security team on the National Security Council to discounting or stifling the findings of scientists and other professionals on the environment, climate change, public health, medicine, and education.

”Re-Beautification”

The same theme is at play with this order, and in sum, it would shrink the role of architects and other related professionals. It would establish a President’s Committee for the Re-Beautification of Federal Buildings, with the President’s political appointees assuming a large role “as arbiters of architectural taste,” as the AIA noted. Furthermore, with respect to the public panels that the GSA uses for design competitions, Trump’s order stipulates that participants shall not include “artists, architects, engineers, art or architecture critics, members of the building industry or any other members of the public that are affiliated with any interest group or organization involved with the design or construction or otherwise directly affected by the construction or remodeling of the building.” Ultimately, this would mean that the mandated architectural style would come first, and the importance of operational excellence and local community comment would lessen.

It’s very difficult to see how a truly excellent, inspiring architectural design would happen in new federal buildings if Donald Trump executes this order. Look and experience federal buildings from recent decades as well as some from earlier times in the 20th century. A pronouncement to rely on classical or other traditional styles in 2020 and the future isn’t making federal buildings “beautiful again.” It’s making them look backward.