Federal Building Bill Mandates Classical Style, Puts Brutalism on Notice, and Requires $50M Projects to Get Community Input

The “Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act of 2025” is straightforward: Uncle Sam is done with modern, blocky, and angular federal buildings. This bill establishes a new official policy that federal public buildings should primarily use traditional and classical architecture—think Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco—to “uplift and beautify public areas” and inspire respect (SEC. 2).

This aesthetic shift is highly specific. For any new federal courthouse, agency headquarters, or any public building in D.C., classical architecture is the default unless there’s a truly exceptional reason to use something else. More broadly, any federal public building costing over $50 million (adjusted for inflation from 2025) must adhere to these new standards (SEC. 3). This means the days of styles like Brutalism and Deconstructivism are effectively over for major federal projects, as the bill defines them specifically as non-preferred styles (SEC. 3).

The New Rules of Design: Expertise and Community Buy-In

For the average person, the biggest change might be the mandated community input (SEC. 2). Local communities are now required to have a “real say” in design decisions, though the bill clarifies that the “general public” for this purpose excludes architects, critics, and anyone who might financially benefit from the design choice (SEC. 3). This is designed to ensure the input is from everyday citizens, not industry insiders, but it also means the GSA gets to pick who counts as the public.

To enforce the style shift, the General Services Administration (GSA) must hire a new Senior Advisor for Architectural Design with specialized experience in classical or traditional architecture. Furthermore, anyone reviewing federal designs must have formal training in these preferred styles (SEC. 5). If you’re an architect whose specialty is modern design, getting your proposal approved by the GSA just got significantly harder.

When the Government Wants to Go Modern, It Gets Complicated

What happens if the GSA wants to build something that looks like it belongs in the 21st century? The bill makes it a bureaucratic headache. If the GSA wants to approve a non-preferred design (like a Brutalist or Deconstructivist structure), the Administrator must notify the White House Domestic Policy staff 30 days in advance (SEC. 5). This notification must include a detailed justification, comparing the proposed design’s beauty and dignity to an alternative classical design of similar cost, including a full lifecycle cost analysis covering maintenance and operations.

For taxpayers, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the bill demands that buildings be “affordable to build, run, and maintain” and built with reliable materials (SEC. 4). On the other hand, the GSA is explicitly told to be willing to spend extra money if necessary to avoid making all federal buildings look exactly the same (SEC. 4). This raises a flag: while the goal is architectural excellence, the mandate to spend extra to avoid “sameness” could be used to justify costlier designs, even if they adhere to the preferred classical style.

The Catch: No Legal Recourse

Finally, there’s a provision that busy people need to pay attention to in the fine print. Section 6(c) states that this Act does not create any new legal right or benefit that anyone can sue the U.S. government over. In plain English, if the GSA ignores the community input, bypasses the classical preference without proper justification, or picks a design that doesn’t “uplift the spirit,” you can’t sue them to force compliance. The only accountability mechanism is an annual report the GSA must send to Congress detailing how well they followed the rules (SEC. 7).