Last year, former President Trump drafted an executive order originally known as “
Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” stipulating that all new federal buildings and monuments would be built in the Neoclassical style of architecture. Since then, President Biden has nixed this plan by revoking this order and, just last week, he appointed four new members to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which oversees all design-related undertakings such as this one.
Biden’s move will continue to allow for the creation of federal buildings and monuments in any architectural style, rather than solely adhering to the Greek and Roman-inspired Neoclassical aesthetic. As many pointed out following Trump’s proposed mandate, controlling the designs of buildings is something numerous dictators have done throughout history, including Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
If Congress approves, the National Endowment for the Arts in particular would see its 2022 budget go up to $201m the highest amount of government funding since its inception
Laurence des Cars has been appointed by Emmanuel Macron as the new president-director of the
Louvre in Paris; she is the first women to hold the role in the history of the institution. Des Cars replaces Jean-Luc Martinez, who had been seeking a third term after eight years at the head of the world’s largest museum. Martinez was believed to have retained the support of the French culture minister Roselyne Bachelot, but his management style and unorthodox merchandising initiatives have come in for criticism. Des Cars, an expert in art from the 19th and early 20th centuries, arrives at the Louvre from the Musée d’Orsay; she takes the reins on 1 September.