Trump executive order mandates classical architecture for federal buildings, discourages brutalism

By Samantha Waldenberg, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that mandates all federal buildings “embrace classical architecture.”

“In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture,” reads a White House fact sheet on the order, which specifically takes aim at brutalist architecture.

The White House does not traditionally wade into architectural decisions, but the president — ever the real estate businessman — has initiated several renovations to impose his style on the White House complex.

The order calls for the construction of federal buildings in a way that “uplifts and beautifies public spaces” and “commands respect from the general public.”

The administrator of the General Services Administration will be charged with implementing the order, and the assistant to the president for domestic policy must notify the president of any construction that departs from “the preferred style” — including brutalist, deconstructivist or other modernist styles.

“In the 1960s, the Federal Government largely replaced traditional designs for new construction with modernist and brutalist ones,” the fact sheet reads, arguing that those styles were “often unpopular with Americans.”

Trump has already applied his aesthetic vision to the nation’s capital, overseeing White House renovations that include paving over the grass in the Rose Garden and installing yellow-striped umbrellas to mimic the patio at Mar-a-Lago. The president also oversaw the installation of a pair of gigantic flagpoles on the White House lawn that fly large American flags.

Construction is also set to begin in September on a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, fulfilling the president’s 15-year ambition to construct an event space on the White House grounds that expands the building’s entertaining capacity — but also resembles the gilded spaces of his private clubs. Renderings provided by the White House depict a vast space with gold and crystal chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns, a coffered ceiling with gold inlays, gold floor lamps and a checkered marble floor.

And inside the White House, the Oval Office itself has been adorned with lashings of gold decoration, which Trump ordered up from a craftsman in Florida who’d worked on his Palm Beach estate, people familiar with the matter said.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Betsy Klein contributed to this story.

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