Though his first month in office has been defined by the COVID-19 crisis and mounting pressure from both sides of the aisle, the Biden administration has also taken steps to address the interests of modernists and brutalists across the country. As part of a broader repudiation of Trump executive orders, President Joe Biden officially undid the controversial “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” executive order, which would have essentially proscribed classical architecture as an official federal style.
First floated in February 2020, the proposal immediately drew concern from a significant cross section of American architects, in part because of how it would break from the General Services Administration’s long-standing “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture,” which explicitly calls for the avoidance of an official federal style.
Though an executive order codifying the Trump administration’s classical architecture preference wasn’t signed until the former president’s final days in office, controversy surrounding its potential implementation persisted for much of 2020. Over the summer, Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus introduced the Democracy in Design Act, which sought to elevate the GSA’s preference against an official federal style into an actual federal law. A closer look at two GSA solicitations, one of which predates the executive order’s proposal, suggests that the government agency would give preferential treatment to classical architecture, despite the fact that any executive order mandating this approach had yet to be signed.
Now, any sort of classical architecture edict has been abandoned as part of a Biden executive order instructing the Office of Management and Budget to “promptly consider taking steps to rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies” that would implement or continue Trump executive orders.
As NPR notes, Biden’s broad declaration could have an impact on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, an independent agency that essentially consults “on matters of design and aesthetics” for the government. The agency is currently chaired by Justin Shubow, the National Civic Art Society president and outspoken critic of modern architecture whose influence over the body may have played a role in the Trump-era executive order. Trump appointed Shubow to the CFA in 2018 and added four new members to the seven-person commission shortly before leaving office. While the fate of those appointees is uncertain at present, there’s little doubt that fans of less traditional architectural styles can breathe a bit easier for now.
