Outgoing US President Donald Trump on December 21 issued an executive order stating that future federal buildings across the country must be “beautiful”. The order, titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture”, states that too many federal buildings reflected “brutalist” designs of the last century. Now, while the new order will create a new council to advise the president on future federal buildings, Trump has said that the new structures should preferably be built in a classical Greek, Roman or similar style.
According to the executive order, Trump, who only has a few weeks left in the office, said that the federal building in Washington DC in recent times have created a “discordant mixture of classical and modernist designs”. He said that with some exceptions, the government had “largely stopped building beautiful buildings”. Further, Trump said that the use of classical and other traditional architecture “should be encouraged instead of discouraged”.
