Published on January 20, 2025
This presidential memorandum directs the GSA Administrator to develop recommendations for ensuring federal buildings adhere to traditional and classical architectural styles, emphasizing civic identity and regional heritage. The directive requires these recommendations within 60 days and establishes a notification requirement for any proposed designs that deviate from these principles, requiring presidential review through the Domestic Policy Assistant.
While presented as an effort to beautify public spaces and honor architectural heritage, this directive potentially centralizes aesthetic control under executive authority and could be used to suppress architectural innovation or cultural expression that doesn't align with particular political or ideological preferences. The vague terms "traditional" and "classical" could be selectively interpreted to exclude certain cultural influences while promoting others, effectively allowing the executive branch to impose a specific cultural narrative through architectural choices.
Though framed as an initiative to enhance public spaces and celebrate architectural heritage, this memorandum appears to establish a mechanism for executive control over federal architecture that could be used to advance specific cultural and political agendas. The requirement for presidential notification of deviating designs, combined with ambiguous aesthetic criteria, creates a system where architectural choices could become tools for enforcing particular ideological viewpoints rather than serving diverse community needs.
January 20, 2025 MEMORANDUM FOR THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION SUBJECT: Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture I hereby direct the Administrator of the General Services Administration, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the heads of departments and agencies of the United States where necessary, to submit to me within 60 days recommendations to advance the policy that 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. Such recommendations shall consider appropriate revisions to the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture and procedures for incorporating community input into Federal building design selections. If, before such recommendations are submitted, the Administrator of the General Services Administration proposes to approve a design for a new Federal public building that diverges from the policy set forth in this memorandum, the Administrator shall notify me, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, not less than 30 days before the General Services Administration could reject such design without incurring substantial expenditures. Such notification shall set forth the reasons the Administrator proposes to approve such design.