President Biden Revokes Trump’s Executive Order on Classical Architecture

Joe Biden has revoked an executive order from Donald Trump’s presidency on the promotion of classical architecture and improvement of federal buildings.

According to NPR, the specifics of President Biden’s revocation are not yet clear, but it does ask the Office of Management and Budget to “promptly consider taking steps to rescind any orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies, or portions thereof” established by former president Trump and set to take effect. Any “personnel positions, committees, task forces, or other entities established” for Trump’s ends will also be abolished.

Trump’s executive order, titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture,” established the Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture, a council that will in all likelihood be abolished under the parameters of Biden’s executive order.

Chairman of the US Commission of Fine Arts, Justin Shubow, criticized Biden’s executive order in a statement to NPR, saying that “our federal architecture has been dismal for decades, and has been designed in modernist styles that do not represent what ordinary Americans actually want.” He then cited a survey that said “72 percent of American adults prefer classical and traditional design for federal buildings.”

“There were wide majorities for tradition across all demographic groups, including political party affiliation,” he added.

Big League Politics covered Trump’s signing of the classical architecture order back in late December of last year. The order said that “new Federal building designs should, like America’s beloved landmark buildings, uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public, and, as appropriate, respect the architectural heritage of the region.”

It’s a shame that beauty doesn’t matter to Biden. But perhaps it’s fitting. Ugly buildings serve as a reminder of the ugly, swampy character of our ruling class.

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