On August 28, 2025, an executive order names classical and traditional architecture as the preferred style for new federal buildings nationwide, with Washington, D.C. designated to adopt classical architecture as the default. The order mandates public buildings be visually identifiable as civic buildings, embodying dignity, stability, and inspiration. The directive follows a January 2025 policy promoting visually identifiable, regional and classical civic architecture. The order links its rationale to the founding era when Washington and Jefferson favored classical forms for the Capitol and White House. It notes that from the 1960s the General Services Administration promoted modernist and brutalist federal designs that, while admired by architects, are unpopular with much of the public and sometimes indistinguishable from commercial projects, lacking civic symbolism.
On August 28th, 2025, President Donald Trump signs an executive order titled Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again. The document establishes classical and traditional architecture as the preferred style for new federal buildings across the United States, with Washington, D.C., singled out as a place where classical architecture is to become the 'default' choice. The order directly addresses decades of debate over federal design, arguing that public buildings should be 'visually identifiable as civic buildings' and should embody dignity, stability, and inspiration for the general public.
Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again situates its reasoning in the country's founding period, when presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson oversaw the competitions for the Capitol and the White House and embraced classical forms to symbolically connect the young nation to the democratic traditions of Greece and Rome. For more than a century afterwards, civic architecture in the US largely followed this trajectory.
The move follows an earlier directive from January 2025, Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, which first set out the administration's vision that civic buildings should be 'visually identifiable' and rooted in regional and classical traditions. From the 1960s onward, however, federal buildings designed under the General Services Administration increasingly adopted modernist and brutalist styles. While admired in architectural circles, the order describes these later buildings as unpopular with much of the public, sometimes indistinguishable from commercial projects, and lacking the qualities of civic symbolism.
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