Two competing proposals in Congress that address the creative freedom of architects could help determine the winners in future bidding competitions involving a more than $1 billion annual federal budget for construction projects.
At issue is how much leeway architects are given to design federal buildings in Washington, D.C., and other parts of the country. On one side are conservative design activists who favor traditional architecture they say promotes Western ideals. On the other side is a bipartisan group that wants to provide more creative freedom, but within certain parameters.
Both sides want to require the U.S. General Services Administration, which serves as the nation’s landlord and is the largest U.S. property owner, to solicit public input before choosing building designs. Those who favor traditional architecture say giving the public a larger voice will ensure that their side wins.
“We are confident that public input will result in more federal buildings designed in a traditional or classical style,” said Justin Shubow, president of the National Civic Art Society, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group that promotes traditional designs in architecture, public art and urban planning. His group conducted a 2020 survey that showed a majority of the public favors traditional architecture.
Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate filed bills last month that require traditional architecture for new federal buildings in the nation’s capital. The Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act also calls for traditional designs to be the preferred, though not mandated, style for federal structures outside Washington, D.C. The legislation revives an order by former President Donald Trump to mandate traditional architecture that would “inspire respect.”
The competing proposal, called the Democracy in Design Act, filed in February by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would block the adoption of an official style for federal buildings while requiring the solicitation of public input. The rival Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act says the GSA should seek public input before selecting an architectural firm.
At stake is more than $1 billion in yearly federal funds for architectural and construction contracts. For fiscal year 2023, the GSA's budget comprised $807.8 million for new construction and $244.8 million for major renovations of federal buildings, which include courthouses, offices, warehouses, hospitals, housing, data centers and laboratories, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
Groups that favor traditional architecture for federal buildings say that structures in Washington, D.C., should adhere to the original design schemes developed in the late 18th century by French architect Pierre L’Enfant, who was commissioned by George Washington, and on styles preferred by Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Those designs are best represented in buildings like the U.S. Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial, Shubow told CoStar News.
“Certain cities like Venice or Paris are pretty uniform in their styles of architecture,” Shubow said. “Those cities are widely admired and the architecture provides their wonderful character. We don’t want Washington to become just another city with buildings that could be constructed anywhere.”
Traditional architecture refers to any style of architecture used prior to the advent of modernism in the early 20th century.
Meanwhile, while the merits of the competing proposals are being debated, the U.S. Navy is choosing from five architectural designs for its proposed new $225 million museum in Washington, D.C., and none of them have a traditional design.
Style Shunned
A significant amount of private-sector architects have shunned traditional styles for federal buildings nationwide and especially in the nation’s capital, Shubow said. The last federal building in Washington, D.C., designed with traditional architecture, according to Shubow, is the Ronald Reagan Building, which opened in 1998.
The architectural style that traditionalists most love to hate — brutalism — is mentioned prominently in the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act.
Brutalism “grew out of the early 20th-century modernist movement [and] is characterized by a massive and block-like appearance with a rigid geometric style and large-scale use of exposed poured concrete,” according to the legislation.
Brutalism is well-represented in Washington D.C.’s federal building inventory with structures like the headquarters of the FBI and the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the buildings of L’Enfant Plaza.
Despite a recent surge of interest in brutalism, the style has been out of fashion for decades, some architects say. New federal buildings in Washington, D.C., include structures like the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters.
The design that architects select for a project depends on the site’s location and topography, and the needs and desires of the specific federal agency client, according to the American Institute of Architects, which supports the Democracy in Design Act. Architects shouldn’t be forced to adopt only traditional architecture design parameters, Kevin Holland, an AIA board member, said in a July 6 statement.
The new proposal from traditionalists “would eliminate community-centered decision making, peer review and architectural skill,” Holland said.
Shubow and other backers of traditional architecture argue that a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report, combined with legislation, will lead to a renaissance of their favored designs in Washington, D.C., and across the country.
The GAO report, released on June 9, recommends that the GSA require community input on proposed federal building designs. That would be a change to the GSA's Design Excellence Program, a 1994 initiative intended to serve as a guideline for how to design new federal buildings and modernize existing ones to ensure they serve as landmarks. It now only says local input should be considered, not required.
Requiring public feedback would help integrate buildings into local communities and incorporate regional architecture, as well as reduce potential schedule overruns because of local opposition, according to the GAO report. The GSA agrees with GAO's findings and is developing a plan to address it, according to the report. The GSA did not respond to a request for comment from CoStar News.
'Preferred Style'
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the lead sponsors of the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act, said in a statement that “federal buildings physically embody our system of government and its institutions. Federal buildings should therefore reflect our government’s dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability while inspiring civic pride.”
The Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act provides a little more leeway outside Washington, D.C. It says that traditional architecture is the “preferred” style for new federal buildings elsewhere across the country. That means traditional styles won't be mandated outside the nation's capital, said Shubow, who is an attorney by training and has published architectural criticism in Forbes and the Washington Post and is an adviser to the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, a conservative think tank. Shubow was also the former chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts during the Trump administration.
While modern architecture has come to dominate federal buildings, traditional design has taken hold in Alabama, Shubow said.
The Federal Building and Courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is a prime example of the type of architecture that federal buildings should deploy, Shubow said. The building, which opened in 2011, features a classical Greek design with large columns.
Other new federal courthouses in the Yellowhammer State — in Anniston, Huntsville and Mobile — are also designed in traditional styles.
While traditional architecture may be appropriate for some communities, it should not be the only style allowed, according to the Democracy in Design Act, the competing proposal. It would require the GSA to adhere to guiding principles for federal architecture approved in 1962. Those guidelines prescribe "against the development of an official architectural style for government buildings and encourages the government to avoid excessive uniformity in building design" and requires the solicitation of public input, according to the legislation.
"We don’t need federal mandates dictating how local governments should design federal buildings in their communities," U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada, said in a statement at the time the legislation was filed.
Brutalism also has fans. The website Brutalist DC points out that the term is misused because the Swiss-French architect who coined the term, Le Corbusier, used it to refer to raw or unfinished concrete, not to describe a building as brutal, harsh or unpleasant.