Returned to power, Donald Trump has made a point of taking swift measures to put the country back on track after a disastrous interregnum, as he sees it. In this he hastens to halt wars and crises, but also rename gulfs and forbid paper straws. On the very day of his inauguration he signed a flurry of executive orders, among them ‘Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture,’ whereby the promoter of gilded glass towers demands that federal buildings go up in regional, traditional, or classical styles, as he deems fit for their dignity. Without explaining what he considers regional in a territory that takes up half of North America, or traditional in an ethnically diverse nation, the directive is the sequel to another one of five years ago – see Arquitectura Viva 222 – and with it the Republican, surely more a fan of the Lincoln Memorial than of the Eisenhower designed by Frank Gehry, lays the foundations of his built legacy. Howard Roark of The Fountainhead and his current double, László Toth of The Brutalist, would both fiercely oppose such mediocre ruling and pursue their own impulses; an attitude truly in keeping with American individualism, at least according to Ayn Rand and Brady Corbet. But given POTUS’s spiteful behavior, it remains to be seen who will refuse to dust off ancient orders and moldings.