OPINION:
One of the most radical policies of Donald Trump’s presidency never had a chance to get off the ground. In 2020, just before Christmas, the 45th president issued an executive order requiring government planners to “beautify public spaces and inspire civic pride” by re-embracing classical architecture.
The directive was only in place for two months before the Biden-Harris machine tore it up, along with just about every other executive order issued by the preceding administration.
The Biden-Harris staff had special contempt for Mr. Trump’s architectural prescription, which cited the constitution of a 14th-century Italian city-state to explain its purpose: “Whoever rules the City must have the beauty of the City as his foremost preoccupation … because it must provide pride, honor, wealth, and growth to the Sienese citizens, as well as pleasure and happiness to visitors from abroad.”
National pride is the sort of thing the Founding Fathers were into, but it’s anathema to progressivism. The ancients took inspiration from the patterns found in the natural world, which they called the golden mean. So, when Pierre L’Enfant designed the “Congress House” and the “President’s House,” his ideas reflected the golden mean.
That Founding-era architect was on to something. Tourists today flock to those iconic buildings; they don’t come to Washington to see the Soviet-inspired edifices found in L’Enfant Corner. Nobody stands in line to tour the Department of Energy’s brutalist headquarters.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Energy Department’s only concern when it comes to design is that buildings are remade to be “decarbonized.” DOE also banned the use of affordable fossil fuels in public buildings under the smokescreen of “saving energy,” but if these directives actually saved money, there would be no reason to make them mandatory in the first place.
Friends of the administration who import Chinese-made solar panels are the big winners when government requires the installation of yet more roof-mounted solar panels. Local communities are the losers because, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last year, the feds don’t bother asking them what they think about planned renovations. The bureaucrats know avant-garde designs are ugly and unpopular.
Federal authorities need firm direction to avoid repeating the aesthetic mistakes that saddled Washingtonians with grim structures like the headquarters for the Department of Health and Human Services. Many upcoming and ongoing D.C.-area projects could be impacted by the return of Mr. Trump’s order.
For instance, the FBI is planning on creating a new, palatial headquarters in Greenbelt, Md. In March, arguments were made about demolishing two historic buildings as part of the new Department of Homeland Security complex at St. Elizabeths Hospital.
Change is inevitable, as the federal city is continuously evolving. That’s why it’s important to have a policy in place to reject the architectural fads responsible for the District’s ugliest structures. Modernists always sneak onto the relevant committees so they can promote the blocky, concrete slab designs that subvert traditional values and promote the sterility of socialism.
Rep. Jim Banks, Indiana Republican, tried last year to counter this tendency by introducing Mr. Trump’s executive order as freestanding legislation. With a narrowly divided Congress, his bill never had a chance of gaining traction.
Returning Mr. Trump to the White House is the only way to ensure federal courthouses across the nation, as well as agency headquarters around the national capital, are made beautiful again.
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