The founders dressed the new republic in the architecture of Greece and Rome to assert its legitimacy. Now the United States is nearly 250 years old; it no longer needs to wear borrowed clothes. nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opi…
Here are some of the buildings created under a 30-year old federal program to encourage excellence in civic architecture. The Moakley courthouse in Boston: 
The Ferguson courthouse in Miami:
The federal courthouse in Salt Lake City
A federal office building in Seattle:
The federal courthouse in Hammond, Indiana
Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC
A proposed executive order would put an end to that program. “The federal government,” it asserts, “has largely stopped building beautiful buildings that the American people want to look at or work in.” It would make classical architecture the "preferred and default" style.
The order hasn't reached the president's desk but the effects are already visible in recent courthouse designs. Here's one under construction in Greenville, SC:
The order reflects a broader inclination in some parts of American society to substitute an imagined past for the complexities and possibilities of the present. It embodies a belief that diversity is a problem and uniformity is a virtue.
nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opi…
nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opi…
The order reflects a broader inclination in some parts of American society to substitute an imagined past for the complexities and possibilities of the present. It embodies a belief that diversity is a problem and uniformity is a virtue.
nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opi…
nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opi…
Some federal buildings are splendid, some quite ugly. The key point is that neither the successes nor the failures amount to an argument for the end of architecture. They are a testament to the American faith that we are in the process of forming a more perfect union.
