The return of Donald Trump to the White House has revived a debate over the architectural style of federal buildings, with the president — and experienced property developer — pushing for traditional styles over modernist designs.
Trump issued a memorandum on his first day back in office directing the head of the U.S. General Services Administration to consult with a presidential aide and agency leaders to compile recommendations for promoting classical architecture. The recommendations are due March 20.
The move restores a failed effort from Trump’s first term to require federal buildings have traditional styles, such as the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court building.
If successful this time around, the initiative could affect hundreds of buildings in the design pipeline across the United States, a list that includes courthouses and offices, foreign embassies and a proposed FBI headquarters. It comes as Trump ordered federal workers to return to the office full time and as the federal government cuts costs by shrinking its real estate portfolio.
Trump’s memorandum doesn’t provide details on whether only specific building types or locations would be affected. The GSA manages thousands of buildings owned or leased by the federal government, located in every state, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories.
“Federal public buildings should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government,” the president's memo said.
The memo serves as a placeholder for a future executive order that could provide more details on the initiative, according to Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society and an advocate for classically styled federal architecture.
Trump's second attempt
While Trump pushed for traditional architecture in his first term, President Joe Biden overturned the directive. Republican lawmakers later tried to revive Trump’s initiative.
The largest network of architects and design professionals oppose the latest move by Trump, who developed commercial real estate while running the Trump Organization. The American Institute of Architects, or AIA, said Trump's move would shift design decisions from communities where the structures would exist to the federal level and make it harder to get designs approved.
AIA “is extremely concerned about any revisions that remove control from local communities; mandate official federal design preferences or otherwise hinder design freedom; and add bureaucratic hurdles for federal buildings,” the trade organization said in a statement.
Trump and supporters single out brutalist buildings as particularly offensive, a design trend that emerged in the 1960s. Dozens of federally owned buildings in Washington, D.C., have brutalist designs, including the J. Edgar Hoover Building that serves as the FBI headquarters and the L’Enfant Plaza office complex.
“Brutalist buildings are in terrible shape, and they’re extremely expensive to renovate and bring up” to the highest-rated properties, Shubow told CoStar News. Shubow previously served as chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a government design review board.
For its part, AIA is renovating its brutalist headquarters in Washington, upgrading mechanical and electrical systems, replacing elevators and improving energy efficiency. The $64 million renovation will retain and restore the concrete façade and install window screens to enhance energy efficiency.
Projects such as the AIA headquarters show the brutalist style has inherent value and that the federal government should consider preserving its inventory of brutalist buildings, according to the Capital Brutalism exhibit at the National Building Museum.
Brutalist battle brewing
Brutalist buildings are “innovative, adaptable and even beautiful in the right light,” Angela Person, a University of Oklahoma architecture professor, told CoStar News in July.
Renovating existing buildings is also more environmentally friendly, according to some architects, because it doesn’t produce additional carbon emissions through demolition or new construction.
A 2023 report by the Government Accountability office said GSA should include requirements for obtaining and considering community input on building design, including architectural style. The GSA later implemented the recommendations.
The GSA is pursuing a new headquarters for the FBI to replace the brutalist J. Edgar Hoover Building.
“President Trump likely wants a new classical FBI building on its key site on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Shubow said, citing Trump’s May 2024 post on the Truth Social site.
Other federal agencies manage longstanding programs to build and renovate facilities and have active projects in the works.
The GSA is building and renovating courthouses across the country. Some courthouse projects are in the design phase, including one in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Some new courthouses, such as those in Anniston and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have distinctly classical designs. Others are not traditional. Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects designed the federal courthouse in Austin, Texas, in a cube shape with asymmetric window patterns. The courthouse won AIA and Chicago Athenaeum awards for its design.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations builds and renovates properties around the world, including upcoming projects for embassies in Brazil and Thailand. The design of the recently opened consulate general campus in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, draws “on the region’s vernacular architecture.”