US president Donald Trump has issued the Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture executive order on his first day back in office.One of numerous executive orders issued on his inauguration day yesterday, the presidential action aims to promote the use of "traditional and classical" architecture for civic buildings.The order requires heads of US government departments to submit recommendations to Trump within 60 days.Order aims to "uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States""I hereby direct the administrator of the General Services Administration, in consultation with the assistant to the president for Domestic Policy and the heads of departments and agencies of the United States where necessary, to submit to me within 60 days recommendations to advance the policy that Federal public 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," said the order.In particular the order requests suggestions on how to update the US government's Guiding principles for federal architecture, which were created in 1962, and for increasing "community input" into design decisions.Read: Biden revokes Trump's "beautiful" architecture executive orderExecutive orders can be issued by US presidents without the need for congressional approval. They are legally binding, but can be dismissed through the court system or by subsequent presidents.The action follows a previous order also called Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, which was issued by Trump on 21 December 2020 in his first term as president.This order stipulated that buildings commissioned by the federal government must be "beautiful" and said that classical and traditional styles were preferred.Latest executive order aimed at architectureThis first executive order was revoked by president Joe Biden in February 2021, just 69 days after it was signed.However, this latest order, signed by Trump on his first day in office, demonstrates that he still considers the issue of the architectural styles used for civic buildings important.The subject has long been one of interest for Trump.Early in his first presidency he issued a draft order named Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, which along with encouraging classical architecture aimed to ban civic buildings from being built in brutalist or deconstructivist styles."Architectural designs in the brutalist and deconstructivist styles, and the styles derived from them, fail to satisfy these requirements and shall not be used," the document stated.This draft order was criticised by the American Institute of Architects, which "strongly and unequivocally" opposed the change and called on members to sign an open letter to the Trump administration.The post Trump signs executive order to promote "beautiful federal civic architecture" appeared first on Dezeen.