This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
On the first day, President Donald Trump signed one flurry of executive orders to immediately carry out his agenda. Many, such as ending birthright citizenship, were met with mixed reactions, including rejection and legal challengesAP News reported.
But an executive action didn’t grab as many headlines. On Monday, Trump issued a memo to the General Services Administration to promote “beautiful federal civic architecture.” The President called for a potential change to the guiding principles of GSA’s federal architecture.
The letter directs GSA and US federal agency heads to submit recommendations “to advance the policy that federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings. . . .”
The directive says that buildings must respect regional, traditional and classical architectural heritage. Recommendations are due to the White House within 60 days.
The memo is short on specifics, but reflects an action Trump took in the final days of his first term in the Oval Office. A Executive Order of December 2020 he also said that federal buildings should be recognizable and beautiful.
The 2020 order, which was revoked by President Joe Biden when he took office, applied to all federal courthouses, agency headquarters, federal public buildings in Washington, D.C., and all other public buildings federal funds that 2020 construction was expected to cost more than $50 million. . The order excluded infrastructure and land ports of entry.
Specifically, the 2020 action highlighted brutalism and deconstructivism as architectural styles that diverged from the preferred architecture.
The American Institute of Architects express concern about the actions which could wrest control of design from local communities.
“AIA supports the GSA’s guiding principles, and we support freedom in design,” the group said in a statement Tuesday. “AIA members believe that the design of federal buildings must first respond to the people and communities who will use those buildings. Our federal buildings across the country must reflect America’s cultural richness, rich traditions and unique geographic regions. The AIA is deeply concerned that mandating architectural styles will stifle innovation and harm local communities.”
In addition, the AIA said GSA’s current Design Excellence Program, based on the guiding principles of federal architecture, achieves the goal of enabling local communities to innovate. Therefore, the AIA said, the program should be protected, not altered.
