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The United States General Services Administration (GSA) recently published a project solicitation notice for a planned federal courthouse in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area that mandates a "classical architectural style" for the facility. In response to the solicitation, the American... View full entry
President Donald Trump is pushing for congressional funding that would allow the General Services Administration (GSA) to undertake a long-delayed renovation and modernization plan for the White House West Wing. Included in a recent legislative framework floated by Republican senators aimed... View full entry
A bill introduced on July 13th by Nevada Representative Dina Titus aims to write the General Services Administration's "Guiding Principles" for federal architecture into federal law. The bill, titled the "Democracy in Design Act," represents an effort to stop the implementation the... View full entry
Following a rare show of bipartisan support, the Bird-Safe Buildings Act of 2019 has passed the United States House of Representatives and is now headed for consideration by the Senate. The bill would require "each public building constructed, acquired, or of which more than 50% of the facade is... View full entry
First Lady Melania Trump has shared an update on the construction progress for a new 1,200-square-foot tennis pavilion that is currently taking shape on the South Lawn of the White House. In a social media post published today, Trump writes, "I am excited to share the progress of the Tennis... View full entry
In a statement posted the American Institute of Architects (AIA) website, the organization explains that a group of former AIA presidents have written a letter directly to President Donald Trump denouncing the "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" executive order. Previously on... View full entry
A proposal such as “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” potentially reduces an entire architectural philosophy to a caricature. Arbitrarily pasting columns and arches on a building so it looks like a Parthenon-Colosseum hybrid is pretentious — and doesn’t make the building classical. Designing classical buildings for the modern age is a complex process, requiring knowledge of construction, world architectural history and urbanism, as well as aesthetic judgment. — Washington Post
Writing in The Washington Post, Michael Lykoudis, Dean of the classical architecture-focused School of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, writes that the planned "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" executive order fills him with "great dismay." Evoking the... View full entry
The Architecture Lobby (TAL) has published a letter arguing against a proposed executive order from President Donald Trump that would mandate classical architectural stylings for America's federal buildings. The group became the latest major architecture and built environment-related... View full entry
Following a great deal of uproar in the architectural community in response to President Trump's proposed "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” executive order, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has written a letter to the president officially opposing the initiative. ... View full entry
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), and the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), Docomomo US, and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) have joined the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in voicing deep... View full entry
In a seven-page draft executive order obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, Trump declares that the federal government since the 1950s has “largely stopped building beautiful buildings that the American people want to look at or work in.”
Future federal government buildings, he decrees, should look like those of ancient Rome, Greece and Europe.
“Classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style,” he states.
— The Chicago Sun Times
The Chicago Sun-Times has published the draft text of President Donald Trump’s proposed “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” executive order that seeks to impose a classically-inspired architectural style on the nation’s federal buildings. The American Institute of... View full entry
Following reports that President Donald Trump is planning to issue an executive order mandating that classical architectural styles become the nation's defacto architectural motifs, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has issued statement opposing the idea. 1/ The American Institute... View full entry
Is neoclassicism about to make a big comeback? It looks likely, as a new executive order under consideration by President Donald Trump attempts to make classicism the "preferred and default style" for new and upgraded federal buildings. According to an exclusive report by... View full entry
