Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again
Record date: 2025-09-03
( printed page 42685) Executive Order 14344 of August 28, 2025 Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1 . Purpose. The Founders, in line with great societies before them, attached great importance to Federal civic architecture. They wanted America's public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue. President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in
What this record contains
- Federal Register document
- 2025-16928
- Publication date
- 2025-09-03
- Citation
- 90 FR 42685
- Issuing office
- Executive Office of the President
Official record excerpt
( printed page 42685) Executive Order 14344 of August 28, 2025 Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1 . Purpose. The Founders, in line with great societies before them, attached great importance to Federal civic architecture. They wanted America's public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue. President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington, DC, on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. They sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity, reminding citizens not only of their rights but also their responsibilities in maintaining and perpetuating its institutions. Washington and Jefferson personally oversaw the competitions to design the Capitol Building and the White House. Under the direction and following the vision of these two Founders, Pierre Charles L'Enfant designed the Nation's capital as a classical city. For approximately a century and a half following America's founding, America's Federal architecture continued to be characterized by beautiful and beloved buildings of largely, though not exclusively, classical design. In the 1960s, the Federal Government largely replaced traditional designs for new construction with modernist and brutalist ones. The Federal architecture that ensued, overseen by the General Services Administration (GSA), was often unpopular with Americans. The new buildings ranged from the undistinguished to designs even GSA now admits many in the public found unappealing. In 1994, GSA responded to this widespread criticism by establishing the Design Excellence Program. The GSA intended that program to “provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government.” Unfortunately, the program has not met this goal. Under the Design Excellence Program, GSA has often selected designs by prominent architects with little regard for local input or regional aesthetic preferences. The resulting Federal architecture sometimes impresses the architectural elite, but not the American people who the buildings are meant to serve. Many of these new Federal buildings are not even visibly identifiable as civic buildings. It is time to update the policies guiding Federal architecture to address these problems and ensure that architects designing Federal buildings serve their clients, the American people. Sec. 2 . Policy. (a) Applicable Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public. They should also be visually identifiable as civic buildings and, as appropriate, respect regional architectural heritage. Architecture—particularly traditional and classical architecture—that meets the criteria set forth in this subsection is the preferred architecture for applicable Federal public buildings. In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture. (b) Where the architecture of applicable Federal public buildings diverges from the preferred architecture set forth in subsection (a) of this section, ( printed page 42686) great care and consideration must be taken to choose a design that commands respect from the general public and clearly conveys to the general public the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of America's system of self-government. (c) When renovating, reducing, or expanding applicable Federal public buildings that do not meet the criteria set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the feasibility and potential expense of building redesign to meet those criteria should be examined. Where feasible and economical, such redesign should be given substantial consideration, especially with regard to the building's exterior. Sec. 3 . Definitions. For the purposes of this order: (a) “Applicable Federal public building” means: (i) all Federal courthouses and agency headquarters; (ii) all Federal public buildings in the National Capital Region; and (iii) all other Federal public buildings that cost or are expected to cost more than $50 million in 2025 dollars to design, build, and finish, but does not include infrastructure projects or land ports of entry. (b) “Brutalist architecture” means the style of architecture that grew out of the early 20th-century modernist movement that is characterized by a massive and block-like appearance with a rigid geometric style
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