Examples of good and bad architecture according to the Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, Van Every Gallery, Davidson College, August 25, 2025— September 10, 2025

President Trump’s December 2020 Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture (revoked by Biden in February 2021 and revived by Trump in January 2025) offers an opportunity to survey the contested architecture of U.S. government buildings.  Executive Order 13967 presents architectural examples created in the classical style that the Trump administration determines to be ennobling and containing qualities that should be encouraged in future federal building projects.  The text also offers examples of buildings influenced by modernist ideas that the Trump administration considers to be discordant and containing qualities that should be discouraged from civic architecture.  The criterion offered by this executive order frames a visualization of agency headquarters that the Trump administration is actively dismantling.