Well, it’s the law, at least for now. The executive order concerning the use of classical and traditional styles in federal buildings was signed on August 28, 2025. The intent is unequivocal, for example: “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.” But what kind of classical? That remains to be seen. It could be the somewhat archaeological classical of Charles McKim, who is mentioned in the order, or the stripped classical of Paul Cret, who is not. (Cret’s 1933 Ft. Worth courthouse is pictured above.) Or the inventive classical of Bertram Goodhue, who described his design of the American Academy of Sciences Building as “God knows what kind of Classic.” Or perhaps a reinvented classical; is there an Inigo Jones, an Edwin Lutyens, or a Jože Plečnik waiting to be discovered? That might be asking too much. Still, as Adam Gopnik observes is an otherwise sternly censorious article in a recent New Yorker, “If, indeed, all federal buildings were to be done in the manner of nineteenth-century courthouses—well, worse things are happening.”
