Societies have long recognized the importance of beautiful public architecture. Ancient Greek and Roman public buildings were designed to be sturdy and useful, and also to beautify public spaces and inspire civic pride. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, public architecture continued to serve these purposes.”
The source of that quotation may seem surprising. It isn’t from a history book or an architectural manifesto. It’s from the opening paragraph of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture. The order was issued on December 21, 2020, making it one of the last things his government did in his first term. A simplified form of this order was recently signed and is now one of the priorities of his second.
The previous, much longer Executive Order offered a welter of historical justifications for beautiful architecture: the City of Siena, Italy’s constitution from 1309, the writings of English architect Sir Christopher Wren and the American Founding Fathers, and the work of Pierre Charles L’Enfant and James McMillan who drafted and executed the original plans for Washington, D.C. as a Classical city. It made a convincing case. But Joe Biden’s White House was unmoved, and the architecture directive was one of many Trump policies cancelled or abrogated by his successor.
This was unfortunate. The general American public was overwhelmingly happy with the goal of the original Executive Order. A poll commissioned in 2020 by the National Civic Art Society showed that 72 percent of Americans of all backgrounds preferred traditional architecture for courthouses and federal office buildings. The Trump-hating pundits were characteristically furious, however, and the Biden Administration followed suit.
The internet erupted with tweets and blogposts asserting that the Executive Order was “fascist” or that Classical architecture meant setting “white supremacy in stone”. Four years later, in distant Norway, this Trump-inspired fight about Nazis, authoritarians and beautiful architecture was still going strong. And recent reactions to the new Executive Order suggest the insanity may be about to begin again. The American Institute of Architects, among many critics, recently expressed its “strong concerns” that officially promoting beauty in federal civic architecture “harms local communities.”
What are some key architectural differences between modernism and postmodernism?
Modernist architecture emphasizes simplicity over ornamentation. Postmodernist architecture reacted against this, embracing a more eclectic style characterized by absurdity, asymmetry, discomfort and strangeness.
At the time, though, one of the craziest responses came from American architectural critic Martin Filler. For him, Trump’s Executive Order was “horrifyingly reminiscent of Hitler’s insistence that public buildings in the Third Reich hew to the Classical tradition.” This was pathetically absurd: Nazi architecture, like the entire Nazi aesthetic, was a distortion of established styles. Instead of expressing Classical ease and lightness, Nazi buildings were heavy and grim, like the Lower Silesian Province Office in Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland) or the old Aviation Ministry in Berlin. The Nazis routinely effaced or destroyed what came before, like when they gutted and hideously redecorated the elegant Medieval and Baroque castles at Wewelsburg and Książ. Chief Nazi architect Albert Speer even planned to level Berlin and raise up the “classicizing” Germania on a monstrous scale.
Still, Googling “trump architecture fascist” disgorges a long list of feeble denunciations of his architectural policy on the ground that it is somehow characteristic of racists, Nazis and fascist strongmen. Various architectural associations have joined in the uproar, including the aforementioned American Institute of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and The Architectural Lobby. Sadly, the Biden Administration was swayed by all those overreactions.
In total, 860 buildings were constructed across Canada throughout the 1960s to honour the centenary of Confederation. But because architects were given free rein to design whatever they wanted, Modernist styles dominated.
The whole debacle remains instructive, though. No matter how tenuous the connection, there really is no subject that angry people on the internet will not try to associate with Hitler and the Nazis. That was one lesson. The other, more serious one is that the general public care deeply about architecture. Most people don’t like the sort of public buildings that they’ve been seeing lately. And if there is a totalitarian impulse anywhere, surely it is found among architects and pundits foisting ugly buildings on politicians and the public alike.
This wasn’t always the case. The buildings in practically every European and North American city were constructed in traditional, local styles until relatively recently. In America, the classical tradition recalling republican Rome and democratic Athens held for most civic buildings until the 1950s. Apart from the many monuments and government buildings in Washington, think of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, the federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or the replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee – all built before the 50s. Similarly, the exuberant Art Deco style prevailed in American office buildings and skyscrapers in the early 20th century.
The Modernist approach represented a break with such traditions, favouring simplicity and avoiding decoration. It became the standard form for government buildings, thanks to a document known as The Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture prepared by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1962. Those principles emphasized “contemporary American architectural thought” and warned against developing an “official style”. Moynihan’s report insisted that architectural design must “flow from the architectural profession to the Government” and not the other way round. The principles were taken to heart and implemented unimaginatively. Classical Washington turned Modernist and hasn’t yet recovered. And, contrary to the apparent intention of the 1962 Guiding Principles, Modern architecture has indeed become an official style.
How does public opinion influence architectural trends?
Public opinion often favours traditional and aesthetically-pleasing architecture, as shown by a 2020 poll in which 72% of Americans preferred traditional styles for federal buildings. Architectural trends, however, have often been shaped by architects imposing their own visions, as in the Modernist and Brutalist styles. Public backlash, such as that against the Château Laurier hotel addition in Ottawa or the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal in Toronto, demonstrates that public opinion can sometimes challenge and even force revisions to unpopular architectural projects.
In Canada, things had begun to change slightly earlier. Our tradition of architecture had tended not to hearken back to ancient democracy or republicanism but rather to Medieval and Renaissance styles. Some of our provincial legislatures, like those of Manitoba and Prince Edward Island, do indeed recall Classical forms, but they are unusual. Public taste normally favoured the neo-Gothic of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, the Romanesque legislature in Ontario, or the Château style of our railway hotels. Or so it was until 1960. The catalyst for change was a speech by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker that June before the Annual Assembly of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
“In a few short years this nation will be celebrating its Centennial,” the Conservative Prairie populist noted. “I ask that you, the members of this profession, should play a most important part, and…present to the Centennial Committee as soon as possible your views and suggestions for this celebration; something to touch the hearts of Canadians, something to represent the unity of our country.”
A noble but flawed aim! In total, 860 buildings were constructed across the country throughout the 1960s to honour the centenary of Confederation. But because architects were given free rein to design whatever they wanted, Modernist styles dominated. A few buildings like the Museum of Vancouver and the Ontario Science Centre were genuinely creative, albeit eccentric.
But most, like Winnipeg’s Centennial Concert Hall, the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and the Fathers of Confederation Memorial Building in Charlottetown, PEI, were extremely unattractive. That last example – now known as the Confederation Centre of the Arts – resembles a grim, Soviet-style mausoleum. The Burnaby campus of Simon Fraser University, opened in 1965, was so bleak and dystopian that it was used as the set for sinister American government buildings in the mid-90s hit TV series The X-Files.
The origin of the problems in Washington and Canada was the same. Architects like Louis I. Kahn, Walter Gropius, Bertrand Goldberg, Takamasa Yoshizaka and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were encouraged to think of themselves as an elite class who were no longer expected to give the public what they wanted or respond to the demands of a patron. Instead, architects began to create what they thought people should want, and they were rewarded for it.
I don’t want to suggest that all Modern architecture is necessarily ugly. Far from it. The variety and simplicity of the early Modernists was carried forward into the 20th century by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra (among others), and their works are still widely admired. But the official style in numerous administrative capitals followed a different example. This was the poured-concrete technique known as Brutalism – so called from the French expression for raw concrete: béton brut. From the mid-20th century onwards, nothing said “important building” like the imposing masses of concrete of the office complexes at the J. Edgar Hoover Building or the Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, the San Francisco Federal Building, or (in the Canadian context) the monstrosities at Place du Portage in Ottawa-Gatineau. They are gigantic and soul-crushing, difficult and expensive to heat, and even hard to get in and out of.
Brutalism probably strikes most people as the Modernist style par excellence. This is ironic, because its gigantism and ugliness make it rather remote from original Modernist principles. I struggle to imagine that the founders of Modern architecture would have even approved of it.
Modernism’s originators were two Austrians: Otto Wagner (1841–1918), a professor of architecture, and Adolf Loos (1870–1933), his student. They were reacting to the preponderance of large and elaborately ornamented yet aesthetically monotonous Baroque buildings in Vienna. The Baroque style was then well into its third century and by the early 20th seemed unimaginative, derivative, repetitious and boring. Wagner and Loos wanted simplicity and variety instead.
“Form follows function” was their main idea, since they wanted a building’s purpose to determine its shape. And there is certainly something to this. Examples of the new Viennese Modernism include the Postal Savings Bank, Loos Haus and the Steiner House. Each represents a successful attempt to simplify architecture to its essential elements. Ironically perhaps, the simplicity and human proportions of such buildings come very close to the spirit of early Classical architecture.
Unfortunately, only the dictum “form follows function” caught on. It is still frequently repeated, but its meaning is not observed. Uniformly soulless masses of concrete, steel and glass have arisen everywhere in the world, often in the form of depressing, Brutalist housing developments like the Alexandra Road Estate in London, England. In the wake of the Second World War’s destruction, Brutalism was cheap and fast, and seemed to embody the opening of a new world of progress and development.
In 1929 Le Corbusier designed a Modernist house for the Savoye family outside Paris. It appeared to be a triumph of functional simplicity. The only problem was that it was a failure. The perfectly flat roof allowed rainwater to accumulate, and within a week the house was flooded.
If there’s any one person to blame for all this, it is Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the Swiss-French architect who called himself Le Corbusier – loosely translated as “Crow Man”. It was Le Corbusier who took the Viennese reaction against ornamentation to an illogical conclusion. He even called the taste for beautiful decoration “an abominable little perversion.” He drew up plans to demolish most of Paris and to bulldoze Moscow in order to erect gigantic concrete towers. Mercifully, no such plans were ever realized. But the idea of reimagining cities as mountains of drab concrete buildings would endure.
What are some examples of traditional architecture?
Traditional architecture varies according to a country’s history and local culture. In the U.S., it’s exemplified by structures like the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, the federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and the Parthenon replica in Nashville, Tennessee, which reflect Classical influences. In Canada, traditions hearken back to Medieval and Renaissance styles; notable examples include the neo-Gothic Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, the Romanesque legislature in Ontario, and the iconic Château-style railway hotels. In Europe, the Gothic cathedral at Chartres, France and the restored Baroque city centres in Potsdam and Dresden, Germany, showcase the timeless appeal of traditional architectural styles.
Form did not follow function in another sense as well. Le Corbusier wrote that a house should be “a machine for living.” His buildings were uninviting with a lot of empty, unadorned space and harsh right angles, and it was often impossible to live in them. For instance, in 1929 Le Corbusier designed and built a Modernist house for the Savoye family outside Paris. It appeared to be a triumph of functional simplicity. The only problem was that it was a failure. The perfectly flat roof allowed rainwater to accumulate, and within a week the house was flooded. The Savoye family found the house uninhabitable, and so tried to sue Le Corbusier. Only the outbreak of the Second World War and the Savoye’s flight out of France saved Le Corbusier from public humiliation.
What makes this so ironic is that Le Corbusier claimed to admire the beauty of machinery such as low-pressure ventilating fans, huge electrical turbines and airplanes. Such technology inspired his architecture, he said. He also loved aeronautics and vowed that his favourite chair was the seat of a cockpit. But the difference between his Villa Savoye and all that technology was that the technology could at least be expected to work properly and meet actual human needs. Machine-design in those days also was often beautiful as well as functional. Unlike Le Corbusier’s buildings, there were relatively few right-angles in that era’s aircraft designs, and even his beloved cockpits were full of round shapes and curved surfaces.
Much 20th century Modernism has accordingly aged badly. What once seemed new and revolutionary now looks worn out and hackneyed. Think of the geodesic domes in Montreal, EPCOT Centre in Florida and Science World in Vancouver, or the many hideous examples of Soviet architecture. One might say the same of the pyramids at the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton, though they at least fulfil their function of letting in light while shedding snow. Brutalism for its part is so widely detested that poured-concrete buildings are now in danger of destruction everywhere. The surest sign they’re not long for this world is that only architects wish to preserve them.
Modernism may be going out of style but it is being replaced by its hideous offspring: Postmodernism. Instead of unimaginative simplicity we now endure a style of building emphasizing absurdity, asymmetry, discomfort and strangeness which comes across as one huge architectural spoof played on the common man. For a sense of this transformation, consider the newly renovated Stanley A. Milner library in Edmonton – a 1960s Modernist rectangular design that has been reconstructed as an awkward jumble of ungainly shapes and angles.
Contemporary “starchitects” like Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry embody this unfortunate development. Gehry and Eisenman consistently win government contracts and prizes, and yet their work is consistently loathed by the public. After Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, many began to see his work not only as ugly but also as wasteful extravagant means for corporations to seem cool. Someone even began selling t-shirts reading “F— Frank Gehry”. And then there was Eisenman’s hideous – and now abandoned – City of Culture in Galicia. But there are many, many other examples.
Most of Gehry’s buildings seem to aim at shock and surprise, but they’re repetitive and boring. Eisenman’s architecture deliberately embodies a spirit of discomfort and awkwardness whether you want it or not. He expressed this sentiment in shocking terms in a now-infamous debate with fellow architect Christopher Alexander in 1982.
Alexander represents the old school. He was known for what he called “the timeless way of building”: a humane, almost spiritual style of architecture which one can see in the buildings he designed for the Eishin Campus outside Tokyo. In contrast, Eisenman claimed that “the role of art or architecture might be just to remind people that everything wasn’t all right.” He instead set a standard for anxiety, disharmony and incongruity which triggered thousands of imitators everywhere, including in many Canadian cities.
Alexander predicted that people would soon see through Eisenman’s approach and dismiss it along with all the other fashionable Postmodernist trends. He was right as far as the common man was concerned – but not when it came to elite opinion.
Alexander rejected that approach and emphasized a need for harmony and balance. He notably held up the Gothic cathedral at Chartres outside Paris as a model of fine architecture. But Eisenman truculently disagreed: “I think it is a boring building. Chartres, for me, is one of the least interesting cathedrals. In fact, I have gone to Chartres a number of times to eat in the restaurant across the street – had a 1934 red Mersault [sic] wine, which was exquisite – I never went into the cathedral. The cathedral was done en passant. Once you’ve seen one Gothic cathedral, you have seen them all.”
It’s hard to tell whether Eisenman honestly believed what he said about Chartres. But his approach to architecture wasn’t actually hypocritical. Eisenman’s houses are awkward and uninhabitable, as though designed to torment the people who live in them. Features in his designs have included a master bedroom divided in two by a wall so that a couple could not sleep together, a large hole in the floor, and a stairway that ran directly into a wall. One house was completely devoid of bathrooms. The owners of one of Eisenman’s houses even published a book lamenting the difficulties of living in it. The idea of designing a building without human beings in mind seems comically absurd if not actually misanthropic, but that was Eisenman’s approach.
In that famous debate in 1982, Alexander’s response to Eisenman was forceful. “I feel sorry for the man,” he said. “I also feel incredibly angry because he is f—–g up the world.” Alexander predicted that people would soon see through Eisenman’s approach and dismiss it along with all the other fashionable Postmodernist trends. He was right as far as the common man was concerned – but not when it came to elite opinion.
Tellingly, Eisenman believed an architect’s role was to impose correct taste on the public. Catering to public demands for architecture, he thought, would be a fatal mistake. He likened it to debasing public taste in music by Paulo Mantovani-style schlock, which would be popular, instead of Beethoven, which would not be. This was pure snobbery, but Eisenman was convinced he and his fellow architects knew best and everyone else would just have to get used to it.
What was the main purpose of Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture?
The purpose of this executive order, issued late in Trump’s first term and partially re-issued in January 2025, was to prioritize beautiful, traditional architecture for federal buildings, inspired by historical examples such as the City of Siena, the writings by figures like Sir Christopher Wren and the American Founding Fathers, and the work of those who drafted and executed the original plans for Washington, D.C. as a Classical city.
Unfortunately, Eisenman’s attitude still dominates the profession. A 2007 poll on “America’s Favourite Architecture” surveyed 1,804 adults and produced a list of 150 buildings. To get an idea of the contents of that list, consider that the top five structures were (in descending order) the Empire State Building, the White House, Washington National Cathedral, the Jefferson Memorial and the Golden Gate Bridge. Furthermore, nearly everything on the list was built more than 50 years in the past.
Architects were accordingly livid at the news, insisting that the chosen buildings did not reflect “expert judgement”. And, sadly but unsurprisingly, Alexander and his small-scale, humane architecture have been eclipsed by Eisenman who went on to win awards, to design ever-larger structures and to teach at several prestigious universities. The Eisenman approach favouring discomfort and shock-value sadly also prevails in Canada where many recent projects like the Peace Bridge in Calgary, the Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg and the huge crystal attached to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto were executed more for attention than anything else.
Now, however, it feels like we’ve reached a new turning point. It is represented by the impressively determined reconstruction of the Cathédrale Notre Dame in Paris following its severe damage by fire at Easter 2019. Many weird, Postmodernists proposals for the repair design were put forward including a rooftop swimming pool, a translucent ceiling, a huge crystal spike and a golden sculpture depicting a gigantic flame on the roof. Even French President Émmanuel Macron favoured something new and contemporary.
Luckily, all these ideas were ignored and the cathedral was reconstructed exactly as it was in the old Gothic style using period building techniques. Fear of losing the cathedral – first to fire and then to Postmodernism – provoked a flood of donations from rich and poor alike, from foreigners and Frenchmen, and even from many non-Christians. All wished Notre Dame to be rebuilt exactly as it was. President-elect Trump notably attended the reopening mass at Notre Dame and was visibly impressed by what he saw. Based on the example of Notre Dame alone, there may be reason to anticipate a U.S. reversion to traditional architecture.
There may be further cause for optimism. The city centres of Potsdam and Dresden, Germany, though destroyed by Allied bombing in the Second World War, have been almost completely reconstructed to their prewar look. These projects are all the more remarkable for two reasons. The first is that all the hideous Soviet-style architecture built by the former Communist East German government has been demolished and replaced. The second is that the project of restoring the old Baroque buildings began fairly recently, is still happening, and is expected to expand beyond the old city centres. A similar project is unfolding in Budapest. The old Buda Castle was badly damaged in the war, and many buildings were gutted and poorly refurbished by the Soviet-aligned postwar government. Now, however, refurbishment according to Mediaeval and Baroque standards is nearly finished.
I suspect the architectural revival in the former Soviet world is so successful for one main reason. The disease, so to speak, was most severe in the old Eastern Bloc, and therefore the popular immunity is the strongest. This is notably not the case in Great Britain, much of which was also heavily damaged in the Second World War, but there are still some small but encouraging signs of improvement.
How did Modernist and Brutalist architecture affect public buildings in Canada?
Modernist styles dominated Canadian architecture after Prime Minister John Diefenbaker invited architects to contribute ideas for Canada’s Centennial. The result was a series of public buildings in Brutalist style – grim, concrete bunker-like structures such as the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, PEI, and Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Centennial Concert Hall.
King Charles III has long taken an interest in traditional, beautiful architecture. When he was Prince of Wales, Charles notably patronized Léon Krier, who is perhaps the greatest traditional architect now living. Krier has built a number of attractive Classical-style buildings and has even planned and constructed entire towns, like Cayalá in Guatemala and – perhaps his greatest achievement – Poundbury in Dorset, England.
Poundbury embodies the spirit of what Krier calls New Urbanism. Some have wanted to see Poundbury as an early “15-minute city”, but this is a misunderstanding. New Urbanism simply means planning on a human scale. Poundbury is accordingly elegant and walkable, but not hostile to the automobile. Traffic is controlled not through signs or lights but by the width of streets and strategic placement of obstacles. Thirty-five percent of all housing is affordable and interspersed throughout the town, but without distinction of architectural style. This facilitates interaction among people of different social and economic backgrounds.
Poundbury is also small, with a population of around 4,500. If Poundbury needs to grow, growth must be an organic reproduction of the town around another nearby centre, not the endless outward sprawl of modern cities. In spite of its critics – and it certainly has some – Poundbury has proved popular since its beginnings in the 1980s. The inhabitants are happy. Property values are 29 percent higher than in the surrounding area, as good an indication as any that people want to live there. Perhaps, now that Charles is king, we may see the principles of New Urbanism applied on a larger scale.
However that may be, there are no signs of any similar changes in Canada. We may be able to take solace in public outrage, though. There were encouragingly vociferous objections to a drab and unimaginative addition to the Château Laurier hotel in Ottawa, which sent architects back to the drawing board more than once. And Daniel Liebeskind’s ugly “Crystal” attached to the Royal Ontario Museum remains Canada’s most hated building. But architects remain unmoved, and the roster of architectural prizes awarded in 2024 suggests that our country is trapped in a mid-20th-century time warp.
As Diefenbaker once did, a future prime minister could invite architects to design new buildings for a new quarter-century emphasizing continuity and harmony with traditional styles – and warn that they’ll simply discard any designs that don’t meet this test.
One of the saddest things about those prizes is that an award for excellence went to a project of refurbishing the Brutalist architecture of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown. The result apparently referenced “the heritage forms while skillfully [sic] creating contrast through materiality, considered fenestration, and a slight reveal that allows the forms to visually slide past each other.” The architectural class called it “thoughtful, elegant, and inclusive”. But it’s still just an ugly hulk from 65 years ago.
If architects won’t abandon their snobbery voluntarily, we will have to force them. Elite patronage on the British model and American-style government mandates point the way forward, and we can combine both approaches in Canada. As Diefenbaker once did, a future prime minister could invite architects to design new buildings for a new quarter-century emphasizing continuity and harmony with traditional styles – and warn that they’ll simply discard any designs that don’t meet this test.
The rehabilitation of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa – due for completion in 2028 – might be a good pretext for a new generation of civic architecture. And on the model of Poundbury and New Urbanism, current and future housing targets could focus on not only the sheer number of units but also on constructing small, organic communities. In the interim, we will await the results of the new architectural Executive Order from the recently re-inaugurated President Trump. When America sneezes, they say Canada catches pneumonia. Let’s hope it’s true for our country’s public architecture.
Michael Bonner is a political consultant with Atlas Strategic Advisors, contributing editor to the Dorchester Review, and author of In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present.
Source of main image: www.ralfsteinberger.com, licensed under CC BY 2.0.