[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 66 (Wednesday, April 15, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1766-S1768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BEAUTIFYING FEDERAL CIVIC ARCHITECTURE ACT

  Mr. BANKS. Mr. President, as you know, one of the great privileges of 
this job is to come down and to speak on this floor--the floor of the 
U.S. Senate--about the important issues of the day. What an honor it is 
as new Senators to come and look around and be stunned by this 
building, by this room, this floor.
  There is something truly inspiring about such a beautiful room as 
this Chamber. In fact, I encourage everyone here--my colleagues, the 
pages, the staff, all of those in the Gallery who are with us today--to 
marvel at just how beautiful this room is. It is truly stunning.
  Take a look around, and take it in. I have been here for a year and a 
half now. It never gets old, walking onto the floor of the U.S. Senate 
and being in this room, the Senate Chamber.
  Look at the attention to detail, every bit of it, from the carpet to 
the ceiling, from the doors to the ornaments on the wall, the Senate 
floor is just one room in one of the most beautiful buildings in the 
entire world.
  Beautiful architecture is a vital part of civic life. What any 
society builds is representative of the values that that society holds 
dear. A society that believes in its goodness and beauty will build 
beautiful things.
  A great country will build great and beautiful buildings like this 
one, and then they will be shaped by them. In fact, it was the great 
Winston Churchill who said:

       We shape our buildings and afterward our buildings shape 
     us.

  So well put.
  But a society that has given up on believing in its goodness and 
beauty will fall into a cult of ugliness.
  Sadly, the classical style of architecture that brought beauty to so 
much of the world has come under serious attack, and it is time to 
reverse that trend.
  Last year, President Trump issued an Executive order just like one 
that he

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signed at the end of his first term and that he signed again at the 
beginning of his second term, called Making Federal Architecture 
Beautiful Again. And that Executive order mandates that classical and 
traditional architecture is the design for Federal buildings.
  Shortly after President Trump signed that Executive order, I 
introduced the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act, which would 
make it the policy of the United States that classical and traditional 
architecture should be the preferred design for all Federal public 
buildings.
  My bill also directs architects and buildings to consult with local 
communities where building projects are taking place and to hear 
directly from them about what they want to see built in their own 
communities.
  I hope that my bill will soon get a vote on this floor to codify and 
make permanent what President Trump has done in his Executive order.
  But I want to spend a few minutes on the floor today explaining why 
beautiful architecture really matters and what is lost when we abandon 
it.
  I have talked before on this floor about my background. I grew up in 
a trailer park, the son of a factory worker in a small town in Indiana. 
The neighborhood that I was raised in, I suppose, didn't exactly have 
what you would call beautiful buildings that you would look around and 
admire.
  But I didn't have to travel too far away from that trailer park to 
see beautiful architecture. I got used to seeing the magnificent county 
courthouse--the Whitley County Courthouse--in Columbia City, IN, my 
hometown, that is right in the middle of the town square. Every time I 
saw it, from the time I was a little boy until even today, when I drive 
by it and see it regularly, I am always inspired by the dome of that 
beautiful courthouse building in my small town.
  I was the first in my family to go to college. And when I got to 
Indiana University, I looked around, and there were several beautiful 
buildings on the campus. The building that I spent the most time in was 
Woodburn Hall, and the intricate mural that was painted in Woodburn 
101, where I heard most of my boring political science lectures, was 
painted by Thomas Hart Benton. I remember looking at that incredible 
mural during those lectures and being inspired by something beautiful.
  Now, my Fort Wayne office, which is my State headquarters, was also 
the same office that I occupied when I served in the House of 
Representatives for 8 years in my district. My office in the E. Ross 
Adair Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, in downtown Fort Wayne, is 
another great, classical-style building that is built in my State.
  When I say that these buildings are inspiring, I am referring to that 
feeling that you get when you see something beautiful, something that 
is built to last, something that is transcendent.
  Beautiful buildings make us look upward, toward the heavens, 
reminding us that there is something out there that is bigger than 
ourselves. That is the transformative power of beautiful architecture.
  Across so much of Europe, you see these magnificent buildings that 
were built hundreds of years ago that are still standing today. We 
should still be able to build those same types of beautiful, long-
lasting buildings in the United States of America.
  Take a look at these two Federal courthouses, just as an example. 
Look at the Federal courthouse in my capital city, in Indianapolis, and 
then the Federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. And look at how the 
courthouse in Indianapolis looks sturdy and solid and how regal and 
beautiful it really looks with that design. It is a testament to the 
importance of the law.
  And then take a look at the Federal courthouse in Salt Lake City--in 
downtown Salt Lake City--and you don't see any of that. In fact, 
frankly, it looks like a prison--I mean, literally. It lacks symmetry, 
and it is anything but beautiful. It is actually really gross, and a 
lot of people who live in Salt Lake City agree with that.
  In fact, Indiana has a great track record of really building 
beautiful buildings, using classical architecture.
  After I graduated college and worked at a few jobs here and there and 
moved back to start a family in my same hometown, outside of Fort 
Wayne, I went to work for a fifth-generation family commercial 
construction company called Hagerman Construction. They have built a 
lot of buildings from the early 1900s to today that use classical 
architecture styles.
  But one of my favorite buildings that they ever built is the famous 
Lincoln Bank Tower in downtown Fort Wayne. It is built in art deco 
style, and it incorporates classical design elements. The Lincoln Bank 
Tower started construction in 1929, and it was finished in less than 1 
year.
  You think about that, and when I was working at that construction 
company, I used to talk to the project managers and the construction 
superintendents, and they used to tell me that there is no way you 
could build a building like the iconic and most beautiful building in 
downtown Fort Wayne, the Lincoln Tower, in less than a year.
  In fact, it would take several years to build something like that 
today, and it would cost a whole lot more in today-dollars versus 
dollars in 1929 to do it. That is because of how much we have done that 
has created so much more redtape when you build buildings and all the 
hoops that you have to go through to build something as beautiful as 
something like that today.
  Another example is the Christ Chapel at Hillsdale College. It is 
another beautiful, neoclassical building that happens to have been 
built by another company headquartered in Fort Wayne called Weigand 
Construction. It is truly one of the most beautiful buildings that I 
have ever seen or been in, in our great country.
  Hoosiers know how to build beautiful things and build beautiful 
buildings. I am very proud of both of those buildings that have Hoosier 
roots.
  As I said, I am the son of a factory worker and a nursing home cook. 
But though I come from humble beginnings, I couldn't help but be moved 
by these beautiful buildings in Indiana and other places I visited. 
Those beautiful buildings, which I still see today, made me realize 
that beautiful architecture really is for everybody.
  They are not simply architecture--these big buildings, these 
beautiful buildings--they are not simply for rich people or the elites 
or the upper classes of our society. Everyone deserves to be surrounded 
by beauty, especially in this great country. That is especially true in 
Washington, DC, our Nation's Capital.
  Washington, DC, is the most important and powerful city in the entire 
world, and I can't think of any other city that has been as 
consequential in world affairs as Washington, DC, the city that we are 
in today.
  Given this city's power and importance, it should follow that DC 
would be beautiful, every bit of it. For large parts of DC, this city 
is truly magnificent.
  Washington, DC, is home to some of the most beautiful buildings 
certainly anywhere in our country but anywhere around the world. We 
have the grandeur of the White House, the U.S. Capitol Building, the 
Library of Congress--truly one of my favorites--the Department of 
Agriculture, and many other beautiful buildings that make up this 
Capital City.
  Because these buildings are built in classical and traditional 
styles, these buildings convey a sense of importance, power, and 
dignity. They tell us that those who pass through them and by them on 
sidewalks are important and that consequential things are happening 
inside of these buildings.
  The old Senate Chamber, by the way, just down the hallway, is another 
incredible room that was designed by a brilliant architect named 
Benjamin Latrobe.
  And when he built it, he talked about building the old Senate 
Chamber, and when he expanded it as the country expanded, he talked 
about how it represented a great and growing Nation. And then Dr. 
William Thornton was the original architect of the U.S. Capitol the guy 
who designed and built the place.
  And he talked about how he designed it in a way for the Presiding 
Officer and I to be inspired as lawmakers to do good things. It just 
goes to show that architecture matters. And that is how we should think 
about the buildings all across Washington, DC, that they represent the 
very best of our Nation.
  When President Trump decided to build a new White House ballroom, 
many of the so-called elites sneered at

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it. They made fun of it. They said it was gaudy and imperial, but 
really it was nothing like that. In fact, most Americans saw the 
ballroom as a return to grace. Finally, the White House would have a 
beautiful place to gather a lot of people, fitting of the important 
role for our Nation's most famous building to bring people together in 
an even more beautiful place than what it already is.
  I am glad that President Trump is making Washington, DC, and the 
White House even more beautiful than what it was before, but, 
tragically, DC is also home to some of the ugliest buildings that you 
can find anywhere. They are some of the ugliest buildings certainly 
that I have ever seen, and it is because we allow brutalism to infect 
our Nation's Capital. Brutalism is an architectural style that emerged 
in the 1950s.
  Brutalist buildings all look alike because they are all alike. They 
are made out of raw concrete. They are big blocks of raw concrete, and 
they are ugly because of that. They look like they are built on top of 
each other.
  In fact, the J. Edgar Hoover Building the home of the FBI is an ugly 
brutalist disaster. The Hubert Humphrey Building home to the Department 
of Health and Human Services looks straight out of a communist, 
nightmarish block. In fact, Dr. Ben Carson who used to serve in that 
building referred to it as ``10 floors of basement,'' is what he called 
it.
  The Department of Housing and Urban Development is another awful 
building. These brutalist buildings have no place in our Nation's 
Capital because our country is not ugly. Actually, Dr. Carson served in 
the HUD building, and he called that 10 floors of basement.
  We deserve to be inspired by the buildings around us, not depressed 
by them. The buildings that we build leave an impact on all of us. The 
question to ask is, How did we get here? How did we allow a cult of 
ugliness to take over large parts of the United States?
  And make no mistake, this didn't happen by accident. Cultural elites 
did this on purpose. They made our world uglier because when you do 
that, you change what citizens expect from public life. A world that 
looks ugly produces a culture that only sees ugliness.
  That is why the targets of the ugliness were often Federal and civic 
buildings. When official government business takes place in ugly 
buildings, the citizens lose belief in their government's goodness. But 
I am telling you, because of President Trump's Executive order and the 
bill that I have introduced, we can really change that one building at 
a time.
  President Trump is leading the charge with his White House 
renovations and his Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again 
Executive order, and President Trump is making our country great and 
beautiful again. And that is why it is really important that we pass my 
bill the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act.
  We need to make sure that classical and traditional architecture are 
the preferred design preferences for all Federal buildings and that 
residents have a say in the types of buildings that are built in their 
communities. Elitist architects shouldn't be allowed to steamroll over 
regular Americans and force anti-American building designs on all of 
us.
  Our country is beautiful. Our country is the greatest country on 
Earth in the history of the world, and we owe it to ourselves and our 
children to build beautiful buildings that reflect who we really are as 
a country.
  And sure, maybe sometimes building beautiful buildings will cost more 
than building ugly ones--I will grant you that--but beautiful buildings 
last. They are transcendent; it is worth it. That is what our country 
deserves, especially this great country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schmitt). The Senator from Virginia.

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