In an Executive Order issued Dec. 18 but announced yesterday, President Donald Trump mandated that construction of all U.S. federal buildings should follow classical architectural lines—that is, Greek, Roman and other classical styles—in order to “uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public.” The Order observes that societies “have long recognized the importance of beautiful public architecture,” and quotes from the 1309 constitution of the City of Siena, Italy, which required that, “Whoever rules the City must have the beauty of the City as his foremost preoccupation … because it must provide pride, honor, wealth and growth to the Sienese citizens, as well as pleasure and happiness to visitors from abroad.”
The Founding Fathers of the U.S. “agreed with these assessments,” the EO states, explaining that “they sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity.” Decrying the ugliness in construction in recent decades, the EO explains that by classical architecture it means the “architectural tradition derived from the forms, principles and vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity, and as later developed and expanded upon by such Renaissance architects as Alberti, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo and Palladio.…”
The President’s order attacks the “deconstructivist” style of architecture, whose ugliness “subverts the traditional values of architecture.” In contrast, the EO concludes, the architecture of federal buildings must show respect for the “general public” and convey to it “the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of America’s system of self-government.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-promoting-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/
