Within hours of ascending to the presidency, Donald Trump issued a memorandum designed to promote the beautification of federal buildings.

The order continues a quest Trump began during his first term to ensure new federal buildings are not just functional but also follow a traditional style of architecture. The president and others have expressed their dissatisfaction with some modernist architecture.

The latest memorandum directs the government to submit recommendations in 60 days to advance a policy that federal buildings “should be visually identifiable as civic buildings and respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.”

In 2020, the president signed a more sweeping executive order on the matter, which was later repealed after former President Joe Biden entered office in 2021.

That order declared that all federal buildings should “respect architectural heritage” and that federal buildings “should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public.”

Ahead of the latest memorandum, Justin Shubow, chairman of the National Civic Art Society, a group that advocates art in the classical tradition, praised the executive order from Trump’s first term in office.

“I think that Executive Order was very important and highly popular with the public,” he said on CBS. “It pointed out that the architecture of the American democracy is classical architecture. So this Executive Order wished to return federal architecture to that tradition, which essentially lasted from the Founders up until World War II.”

After the memorandum was signed, Shubow hailed the move on X.

“He’s going to Make Federal Architecture Great Again. Here’s to democracy in design!” Shubow wrote.

Washington, D.C., has a mix of both modernist and classical architecture. Trump’s previous directive included wording specific to the nation’s capital.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“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,” the order said.

It is unclear how the latest memorandum will affect costs or if it will have any deficit effects.