Jim Banks Unveils Bill to Promote Classical Architecture

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) unveiled legislation on Tuesday aimed at making classical architecture the preferred national style.

Banks, who is running for Senate to replace the outgoing Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), introduced the Beautifying Federal Civil Architecture Act to restore former President Donald Trump’s vision for a Council on Improving Federal Civic Architecture. The bill would make classical design mandatory for all new federal projects in Washington, DC, and would apply extra red tape for those trying to build new federal buildings in the late 20th century Brutualist and Deconstructivist styles.

Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Clay Higgins (R-LA) cosponsored the bill, along with Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and Marco Rubio (R-FL).

During the lame duck period of President Donald Trump’s administration, or December 2020, Trump signed an executive order to make all new federal buildings “beautiful.” When President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, he overturned Trump’s executive order.

The bill’s release follows the Government Accountability Office (GAO) releasing a report that criticizes the system by which the federal government picks architects and engineers for major projects.

Bloomberg explained:

… the program used by GSA to select architects and engineers for major construction projects since 1994. Nicolai Ouroussoff, former architecture critic for The New York Times, wrote in 2007 that Design Excellence was launched to “remedy the atrocious architecture routinely commissioned for government offices.” Specifically it was a response to the proliferation of grim federal offices during the 1960s and ‘70s, some of the same buildings lambasted by conservatives today. This era of federal architecture “was wonderful when it was done by talented people, but it could also be cloned by untalented people in buildings that just seemed to be endless punch-card facades and repetitive boring things,” said Robert Campbell, critic for The Boston Globe, for a documentary produced by the GSA.

While the Republican legislation doesn’t mention Design Excellence by name, it would reorient the way GSA does business.

Justin Shubow, the president of the National Civic Art Society, a nonprofit that promotes traditional civic architecture, said, “The legislation demonstrates that leaders beyond President Trump see the need to reorient federal architecture from modernist to classical and traditional design. This is an issue that’s not going away.”

The Republican legislation calls for federal buildings that “uplift and beautify public spaces” and “inspire the human spirit,” and says that only classical architecture can “ennoble the United States.” The bill cites famous architects, such as Brunelleschi, who designed the Duomo in Florence, Italy; Julia Morgan, who designed the Heart Castle in California; and others.